Tim Easterby’s six-year-old made his first trip to Ireland immediately after winning the inaugural Palace of Holyrood House Handicap at Royal Ascot as a three-year-old, and the journey was rewarded when he was a comfortable winner of the Group 3 Coolmore Sioux Nation Lacken Stakes at Naas.
Since then he has twice won another Group 3, the William Hill Renaissance Stakes at The Curragh, and both times he did it in style again, by five lengths on the first occasion and by three lengths the second. He has started odds on every time, so punters in Ireland certainly have his measure, and on the latter occasion he had one of Saturday’s rivals, Ano Syra, well held in fourth.
The target at The Curragh again this weekend is an even bigger prize, and Art Power ought to take a bit of beating once again.
Easterby, is looking forward to it and said: “He’s a super horse and he didn’t run too bad at York last week on his reappearance, where he was just a bit fresh and free on his first run since he was gelded.
“I don’t know if gelding will benefit him or not, but we were struggling to find him a place at stud and so we decided to cut him and race him on, as he’s a grand horse with great limbs on him, and he always runs well in the big sprints.
“I’d imagine it will be decent ground there, but he’s fine on fast ground too and he’s very well.”
Art Power’s strong travelling style of racing has seen him finish in the frame in a Diamond Jubilee and two British Champions Sprints at Ascot, as well as a Betfair Sprint at Haydock, and Easterby believes he’s been unlucky not to win one of them.
He said: “He’s run some super races in Group 1s and he’s been a bit unlucky, as he’s been drawn badly or raced on the wrong side, or that kind of thing. He always runs well.”
Easterby has a tremendous record in Ireland, where he’s had seven winners from only 17 runners, six of them in Group-level sprints and the other in a valuable sales race for two-year-olds.
He said: “We’ve been very lucky over there, but we don’t send them unless they have a good chance. The first winner there was Bally Pride in a sales race, and I remember that one very well as I owned a share in him. I had a bad head the next day!
“We won a few years later with Fayr Jag, the same afternoon that Bollin Eric ran in the Irish St Leger and wasn’t seen to best advantage, and we’ve also won there with Golden Nun and Mattmu before Art Power.”
Also travelling to Ireland is Garrus, who is Art Power’s senior by a year but is another who maintains his form and enthusiasm particularly well, as demonstrated by last month’s Group 3 win from Commanche Falls and Creative Force in Newmarket’s Abernant Stakes.
He, like Art Power, has now won three Group 3s, and he too has plenty of Group 1 form, including a close third behind Highfield Princess in the Prix Maurice De Gheest at Deauville last August.
Charlie Hills would love to add a first Group 2 win to the seven-year-old’s CV, and this looks an ideal opportunity. He said: “We were very pleased with his win in the Abernant and he seems in good form still, so he goes there with a live chance.
“I think he comes out top on the official ratings, and he quite likes the quicker ground. The stiffish track should help too, and we’ve booked Ryan Moore, who rode him at Newmarket, so it’s all very positive.”
There have been four British-trained winners of the Weatherbys Ireland Greenlands Stakes in the last decade, the most recent of them just 12 months ago when Hugo Palmer scored with Brad The Brief, and with the home team lacking an obvious star of the calibre of winners like Slade Power (2014), Gordon Lord Byron (2017) or Merchant Navy (2018) there must be every chance the prize is destined for export again.
However, Michael O’Callaghan’s Twilight Jet would merit a lot of respect if back to his best. He finished last in both the Commonwealth Cup and the July Cup last summer, but something was presumably amiss as he wasn’t seen again.
He’d earned a crack at those races with a good win in a Group 3 at Naas first time out, and as a two-year-old he’d looked worth sending to the Breeders’ Cup after winning the Cornwallis Stakes at Newmarket.