Black Minnaloushe led home a unique one-two-three for Aidan O'Brien in the Entenmann's Irish 2000 Guineas at the Curragh today. The 20/1 outsider, ridden by Johnny Murtagh, conjured up a late push to catch stablemate Mozart (also at 20/1) and win by two lengths, with 2/1 favourite Minardi failing to live up to pre-race expecatations, coming in a further three-quarters of a length behind.
O'Brien is already thinking about what next for his history-making mounts and Ascot is believed to be on the cards. He is considering entering today's winner in the St James' Palace Stakes, Mozart in the Jersey Stakes and Minardi in the Queen Anne.
Today's victory was a lucky break for the Group One specialist Murtagh, as he initially turned down the ride of another O'Brien horse, Freud, because he thought he had the mount on the Richard Hannon-trained Tamburlaine. However, when regular jockey Richard Hughes was cleared to ride Tamburlaine, Murtagh was left without a ride as Jamie Spencer had agreed to ride Freud. The only available mount left was Black Minnaloushe but Murtagh is not sorry now, especially as he went on to capture a double by taking the concluding Guineas Festival Maiden on board Julie Jalouse for John Oxx.
"It's my first Group One of the year. I was delighted to win a Classic at home in my own backyard," said Murtagh afterwards. "There was a bit of a mix-up during the week about what I was going to ride and thankfully Aidan put me on Black Minnaloushe and the horse did very well today. It just goes to show that you need a little bit of luck in this game and I was very lucky that the race really panned out for my horse today. There was a good pace all the way."
"Aidan said to ride him with loads of confidence," he explained. "He says he's a horse with lots of ability and sometimes he doesn't always put his best foot forward but he says that's because the races are not run to suit him. Today the race was run to suit him, there was a good strong pace all the way and when the leader started to tire in front of him he got great heart in picking him up."
Filed by Amanda Fennelly
