Aidan O’Brien continued his domination of the classics when Winter won the Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas at the Curragh.
Winter, who had won the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket three weeks ago, achieved the rarity of breaking new ground for O’Brien as all of his previous three Newmarket Guineas winners - Virginia Waters, Homecoming Queen and Minding – failed to win at the Curragh.
Ryan Moore, who had elected to ride stable companion Rhododendron last time, was on Winter now and never had a moments anxiety that he was on the right O’Brien runner for this race as Hydrangea adopted a pacesetting role before Rehana took the lead about three furlongs out.
However, Winter eased into the lead just after the two-furlong marker to win by four and three-quarter lengths with Roly Poly and Hydrangea second and third, making it a one-two-three for O'Brien, who was winning the race for a seventh time.
This was a 71st European classic victory for O’Brien, who had won the Irish 2000 Guineas with Churchill on Saturday, and Winter will run next in the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot next month.
"She's not short of pace. You'd imagine she might get a mile and quarter when she gets a mile that strong here at the Curragh, but she's a good traveller,” O’Brien said. “Ryan said she was as easy a Classic winner as you could believe.
"If everything went well, you'd be thinking of the Coronation Stakes with her, because she is a good strong traveller.”
It was a good day for the travelling British runners with Decorated Knight winning the Group One Tattersalls Gold Cup for Roger Charlton, who had trained the winner twice before with Al Kazeem (2013 and 2015), while Robin Of Navan, trained by Harry Dunlop, was caught close home when Mekhtaal just got up to win the Group One Prix d'Ispahan at Chantilly.
By comparison Iain Jardine only had to travel around 70 miles from his yard at Currutherstown to Kelso where Double Whammy stayed on better from the last fence than Ash Park to win the Ayton Castle Handicap Chase.
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