BALLYDOYLE CAN CONQUER THE WORLD TONIGHT: Shamrock banks on Ballydoyle to capture tonight’s World Cup in Dubai but prefers the O’Brien second string each way in the UAE Derby.
So you think he’s quiet! After a modest start to the Flat in Ireland, Aidan O’Brien launches a mass attack on Meydan this evening, including with two of his favourite horses, St Ncholas Abbey and So You Think.
MEYDAN: O’Brien and the Ballydoyle team kept faith in St Nicholas Abbey when he flopped in his three-year-old season and, sure enough, he bounced back to win the Breeders Cup Turf.
Stablemate Treasure Beach won the Irish Derby but was pacemaker for St Nicholas Abbey in the Arc, and Meydan jockey bookings – and the market – for the 6.00 Sheema Classic suggest that is his role again.
Cirrus des Aigles beat So You Think in last year’s Champion Stakes at Newmarket and Beaten Up has that ‘could be anything’ look of a lightly-raced potential improver, with Johnny Murtagh up.
It will be a masterly feat to match the St Nicholas Abbey comeback, if Aidan can revitalize Await The Dawn (5.25) after the Royal Ascot winner almost died of fever.
Daddy Long Legs (3.25) finished in front of Ballydoyle stablemate Wrote before that one won at the Breeders Cup meeting, yet is 9.0 for the UAE Derby this morning, with Wrote 5.4.
The main course, the World Cup and So You Think, comes last on the menu and I don’t see it as a dish to set the world alight this year, with only two horses in the race younger than five.
That also helps our man; no serious young pretenders to demolish him, and a forecast second favourite who is said to have travelled badly, yet holds his position in the market. So, you may think we have a Ballydoyle nap.
NAVAN: The Grade-2 Webster Cup (5.20) will be run on good ground which seems to disadvantage Tranquil Sea and make it a match between Realt Dubh and Zaarito.
If I’m going to win my fortune when Seabass takes the Liverpool Grand National (I’ve got 41.0 remember!) I have to be shouting for the one he beat only a length (Tranquil Sea fourth) at Naas in February. That’s Zaarito.
SHAMROCK’S BETS
NAP: So You Think (6.40 Meydan)
WIN AND PLACE: Daddy Long Legs (3.25 Meydan)
DAQ YANKEE: Daddy Long Legs (3.25 Meydan), Zaarito (5.20 Navan), Slieveardagh (5.55 Navan), So You Think (6.40 Meydan
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