Irish Oaks trial at Naas

Easily the best race of the day in the U.K. and Ireland is the Irish Oaks Trial at 21.00 CET at Naas. This is only a listed event on paper, but the field is good enough for a group race. Jessica Harrington and Aidan O´Brien each saddle 3 runners, but we cannot fancy Jessica´s. the best of which is probably Remember Alexander (Shane Foley), who faces a tough task under top weight. O´Brien has better prospects, with Betterbetterbetter, ridden by son Joseph, 8th in the Epsom Oaks, followed by a good second place to the smart Sapphire last time, with stable companions Soon (Seamus Heffernan) third and Demurely (Colöm O´Donoghue) fifth, with Remember Alexander 4th. Aaraas (Kevin Prendergast/ Declan McDonough) was runner-up in the Blue Wind Stakes over this CD in mid-May, with Was, who went on to win the Oaks, third and the Aga Khan´s Shebella (John Oxx/ Johnny Murtagh) in fifth. However the one we really like is Khaled Abdulla´s Caponata (Dermot Weld/ Pat Smullen), a very easy win ner on her only start so far at Gowran Park. This obviously is a much tougher race, but Weld has an excellent record with fillies and certainly knows the time of day, as we saw last week at Ascot.