IF there’s one thing we learned from last weekend at the Curragh, it’s that classic defeat at Newmarket is no barrier to striking Irish Guineas gold.

In the case of both of the Tattersalls-backed classics last week, the winners had been beaten three weeks earlier in their British equivalent assignments.

There were different circumstances around the Newmarket reversals, in fairness. Connections of Field Of Gold seemed to feel they hadn’t got a fair bounce of the ball tactically when second to Ruling Court, while Lake Victoria was said to have been only ready for a racecourse gallop when beaten two and a half lengths in sixth behind Desert Flower.

How the tables turned dramatically in both cases come Curragh time, though.Those results continued a recent theme at Irish flat racing headquarters.

Three of the last four winners of the Tattersalls Irish 2000 Guineas (Rosallion and Native Trail the other two) have now won the Curragh feature after defeat in the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket, while each of the last three Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas winners (Tahiyra and Fallen Angel the others) were turned over at Newmarket on their previous start too.

It has also been noticeable in the early-season classics that Aidan O’Brien has not been as dominant as was the case up until fairly recently, and there could be good reasons behind that slower start to the Group 1 calendar.

Nobody has trained more 2000 Guineas winners at Newmarket than O’Brien’s record of 10, but he has drawn a blank in the last six renewals, having won four of the previous five editions before that. It’s his longest drought in the race since his first victory with King Of Kings back in 1998.

Likewise, the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket has stayed outside the Ballydoyle grasp in each of the last four runnings - a big shift from winning five of the previous six renewals before that.

Classic context

Every individual case is to be treated on its merits, and there are factors that have played a role in this development. For example, blowouts for Auguste Rodin and Little Big Bear in the 2000 at Newmarket two seasons ago came as a major shock, while City Of Troy had no other stablemate in the line-up to try to pick up the pieces when he failed to fire last year.

Reading between the lines this year, it felt as though the intended Newmarket ‘A’ team for Ballydoyle didn’t manage to make it to the race. Fairy Godmother was retired through injury, The Lion In Winter didn’t prove ready in time and Twain was deemed to not be 100% after a pre-race work, soon ruled out.

That meant the Coolmore squad for both Newmarket classics was not what it could be. However, might O’Brien be playing the long game for the season anyway? Perhaps priming a horse for the first Saturday in May means there is not the same petrol in the tank for the back-end of the year, when the programme is back-loaded with international Group 1s and tremendous prize money.

As we’ve seen over jumps time and time again, Willie Mullins appears content enough to miss out on most of the autumn/early-winter exchanges with his top horses in order to hit the line hard come the Punchestown Festival. Perhaps there is a touch of that at play here too in the recent Ballydoyle Guineas record. It might be no harm given how the career trajectory of the latest Newmarket winners is unfolding.

Let’s take a look at the newest 2000 Guineas winners from Newmarket: Magna Grecia (2019) could only finish fifth in the Irish equivalent on his next start and then tailed off on his sole other run in the QEII before retirement.

Kameko (2020), while running creditably on multiple occasions, went 0-4 in Group 1s for the remainder of his career and his single win since came at Group 2 level. The ambitiously campaigned Poetic Flare was beaten in the Irish and French Guineas after victory at Newmarket, but he did roar back to winning ways in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot. That was his only career success post the Guineas.

Coroebus (2022) won the St James’s Palace before a beaten fifth as favourite in the Prix Jacques le Marois, later sadly fatally injured in the Prix du Moulin. Chaldean (2023) saw his form go backwards with each of his three winless runs following his Guineas triumph, while last year’s hero Notable Speech was poor in the St James’s Palace next time out, then won the Sussex Stakes and has gone 0-3 in Group 1s since.

Mixed record

All in all, there hasn’t exactly been an array of open company Group 1 wins to follow for 2000 Guineas winners. In fact, it may come as a surprise to note that Gleneagles (2015) is the only 2000 Guineas winner since 2012 to win more than one other race in their career after victory at Newmarket. A definite element of that statistic will be the commercial value a colt holds after winning the first classic of the season, and racing beyond a three-year-old season isn’t the norm for these horses. Still, a greater return ought to have been expected.

Similarly, the recent 1000 Guineas winners from Newmarket haven’t shot the lights out later into the season. Last year’s winner Elmalka is 0-5 since (her only placed effort coming in Group 2 company), Mawj (2023) went on to win once more at the highest level in North America, Cachet (2022) was 0-4 after her Guineas triumph and Mother Earth (2021) won just one of her 10 subsequent tries at Group 1/Grade 1 company.

Highlighting any of these examples isn’t with the intention of discrediting their achievements. Winning any one of the five classics in a horse’s generation is a massive feat. But, at the same time, only three of the 38 Group 1s in the British calendar are run before June’s Derby meeting at Epsom.

Being peaked for a whole month before that may well have an impact on a horse’s ability to shine late in the campaign. After all, from July onwards, 24 of Britain’s 38 Group 1s are still to run.

There is no shortage of attractive autumn and winter treats further afield too, with Arc weekend at ParisLongchamp, the Breeders’ Cup, Hong Kong International Races and Australian spring carnivals, to name a few, all on the table in the latter stages of the calendar. More locally, the Irish Champions Festival and British Champions Day make up a significant portion of the Irish and British Group 1 books.

If our Newmarket Guineas winners aren’t tending to run up sequences as the year goes on, perhaps playing the longer game - if that is indeed a consideration for the likes of O’Brien - might make a lot of sense.

As last weekend at the Curragh taught us, defeat at Newmarket certainly doesn’t stop Group 1 success later.