Performance Review
June 2024
We were delighted to have a very successful June here at Rathbride, coming away five winners from just 26 runners during the month, including a €100,000 premier handicap winner on Irish Derby day at the Curragh.
It was fantastic that everything came together as we’d hoped for Amazon Lady to land the Dubai Duty Free Rockingham Handicap for her owner-breeder Madeline Burns. She put up a very good performance from stall one, racing on her own on the far side, and Billy got her into a lovely rhythm.
That’s two wins in her last two starts, and she’s a beautiful, big mare who is in-foal to New Bay. The plan is that she’ll be retired after her next run in the Listed Sweet Mimosa Stakes at Naas on July 24. It’s great that she’s now up to a mark of 101, having been rated 84 towards the end of last season. If her kids turn out to be as speedy and tough as her, we’ll be laughing.
Amazon Lady lands the Dubai Duty Free Rockingham Handicap at The Curragh
It was a pleasure to train a first winner in Ireland for owner-breeder Arturo Cousino when Jancis made a winning debut in a seven-furlong fillies’ maiden at Leopardstown. These colours have a long history in Chile, breeding horses for over 100 years, and hopefully this filly has a bright future too. She goes for the Group 3 Brownstown Stakes at Leopardstown on July 11.
Jancis makes a winning debut at Leopardstown
We also got a maiden winner on the board at Cork with Zarra Ellis for Jimmy Murphy and the Redpender Stud team. She had a couple of nice runs last season and it looked as though she enjoyed herself coming back to the five furlongs at Cork. She got a big hike in the weights for winning and will head for another sprint at Tipperary next month.
A maiden win for Zarra Ellis
We brought up an across-the-card double on June 22 thanks to winners at Limerick and Down Royal - both through fillies notching important first wins for their pedigrees.
One Boss hadn’t been with us overly long before getting off the mark in a mile handicap at Limerick for owner Rory O’Toole. She was drawn widest of all and got a lovely ride from Declan McDonogh - I asked him to give her confidence and he did exactly that. She’s currently in-foal to Bayside Boy and will head to Tipperary for a fillies’ handicap next month.
One Boss confidently wins at Limerick
Our Down Royal winner on the same day was the very well-bred Dream Ticket, a half-sister to multiple blacktype horses, including Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere winner Naaqoos. She saw out the extended mile and a quarter well for her owners Sarah Hyland, Joseph Burke and the Oghill House Stud team. We’ll look towards another handicap for her at Naas next month.
Dream Ticket wins at Down Royal
Cancelled was unlucky not to be among the winners for Sabah Alsabah this month too. She was only beaten a head when closing with every stride in a fillies’ maiden over a mile and a quarter at Navan. It didn’t work out for her at Gowran since against previous winners but we’ll head back to maiden company with her at Limerick next month over further.
There was also a nice debut run from Renzo Forni’s homebred Lunigiana when second at Cork over six furlongs. It was pleasing to see how she came home, especially given she was drawn on the opposite side of the track to the winner. Hopefully she can open her account in due course as a well-bred filly out of our Group 3 Athasi Stakes winner Dolce Strega, who produced the recent Northumberland Vase winner Alphonse Le Grande.
It’s always a boost for everyone when the horses are managing to hit the back of the net, and thankfully the past few weeks have been good to us. We’ll continue pushing hard to keep this good run of form going.