group races at the Curragh

it´s a bank holiday today, which means lots of low-level racing - on the flat at Bath. Beverley and Windsor and over jumps at Down Royal, Kempton and Warwick, but easily the best racing comes from the Curragh, which presents a high class card featuring two group races.

The most interesting runner today is Found (Aidan O´Brien/ Ryan Moore) who runs in the Athasi Stakes for 3yo´s and up for fillies and mares over 7 furlongs at 16.15 CET. She is one of 4 3yo´s in the field who should certainly dominate the older runners. Found was just about the best juvenile filly in Europe last year, easily winning the Marcel Boussac, and was throughout the winter ante-post favourite for the 1,000 Guineas yesterday. However she had reportedly suffered a slight setback and was a surprise withdrawal from that race - won by another Coolmore filly ridden by Moore- preferring to go for this lower grade event. In theory she should win this easily, but there has to be a slight doubt - especially on the heavy ground- so we today fancy Shahzeena (Dermot Weld/ Pat Smullen), who is taking a huge leap in class after winning a Cork maiden on heavy going a month ago. However this trainer knows what he is doing and would not be running her in a group race without reason. Another 3yo Stellar Glow (Jim Bolger/ Kevin Manning), placed on all 3 starts last season, looks next best.

The Mooresbridge Stakes over 10 furlongs for older horses at 17.25 has been won by O´Brien for the past 6 years, but he has no runner today and only 4 go to post, of whom two probably have no chance. That leaves just two, Parish Hall (Bolger/ Manning) and Fascinating Rock (Weld/ Smullen). The former is a real CD specialist, winning a similar race here last time and has been twice placed in this event. However the ground is against him and we don´t believe that he can concede weight to Weld´s much less exposed runner in any case; this one was well beaten in both the English and Irish Derby last year, but seems to have everything in his favour today.
Weld, Bolger and O´Brien all have runners in the listed Tetrarch Stakes over 7 furlongs for 3yo´s at 15.40, but this looks quite a tricky race and our preference is for Endless Drama (Ger Lyons/ Andrea Atzeni), who won his only start at 2 and finished runner-up to a Weld hotpot on his only start this season.

Betting forecast:
1. Race: Mimicking - State Of Emergency - Blood Moon
2. Race: Tombelaine - Endless Drama - The Warrior
3. Race: Stellar Glow - Shahzeena - Alive Alive Oh
4. Race: Laviniad - Bobby Jean - Princess Glamour
5. Race: Parish Hall - Fascinating Rock - Waltzing Matilda
6. Race: Stronger Than Me - Nancy Rose - Tsundoku
7. Race: Shanghai Beauty - Congressman - Iffraja