THE Irish Champion Stakes can be a shoulda, woulda, coulda race with excuses and hard luck stories easy to recall over the years, but the 2025 edition was not one of those runnings. Delacroix may only have won by three quarters of a length, but he was value for more and looked a well up-to-scratch winner of the race.

Not that everyone – me included – believed in him before the race, Aidan O’Brien saying afterwards ‘we saw what he could do in Sandown, and no-one believed it, but they’ve seen it again today.’ The Eclipse win was incredible, but it looked too good to be true and when Delacroix failed to back it up at York, those suspicions grew.

But O’Brien had been vocal in his view that the Juddmonte International had been a mess and he was proven correct as Delacroix produced a blinding turn of foot after the turn in at Leopardstown.

Christophe Soumillon angled him sharply right onto the best ground up the near rail, though he very much had the horse to pull that move off.

Another thing Soumillon got right was the pace. The sectional heatmaps on the Racing TV website show that the pace in the first two furlongs was steady before picking up from there with a fast middle part and a slower finish.

Delacroix broke well and was up there after a furlong, but his jockey took him back as the pace lifted though it was a big help that he knew stablemate Mount Kilimanjaro would go forward at that point.

Anmaat for Ascot

Anmaat did his best to follow the winner through but never looked like getting there though this run might have been needed a little and he holds good claims of winning another Champion Stakes at Ascot, being relatively fresh for the time of the year.

The third-placed Royal Champion shaped better than the form, too. He got hampered soon after the start, then moved up the field as the pace was hot. Still, he travelled well before being outpaced early in the straight then keeping on late, his jockey unable to go with the sharp moves of Delacroix and Anmaat, all this was coming on ground slower than ideal.

One downer from the Irish Champion Stakes, and the Leopardstown card, was the switching camera angle early in the straight which would turn back to the usual angle late in the race.

That sort of tracker shot may have captured the move of Delacroix well, but it was not great if you were looking to follow a horse back in the field live and terrible for post-race analysis as there are parts of the race that can’t be seen.

The other Group 1 on the Leopardstown card was the Matron Stakes and winning trainer Karl Burke summed up Fallen Angel well: ‘She should be staying a mile-and-a-quarter really but we’re probably better off being aggressive over a mile.’ She is hard to pass at this trip and held on well despite cutting out a strong gallop. Atsila ran her best race yet in third, the first-time tongue-tie bringing about improvement. Cercene was a touch disappointing in fifth, Joe Murphy’s pre-race concerns that it might be one run too many perhaps playing out.

THE rain ahead of racing at Leopardstown played a part in the outcomes there, as the outside part of the track became favoured and, listening to the wind at the Curragh on Sunday, it felt like the weather might again be an important factor.

As the races went on, however, the track seemed fair, a mix of front-runners and hold-up types winning, with Al Riffa the most impressive on the day.

Joseph O’Brien said afterwards that his rivals wanted to make it a test of stamina as most of his form was over shorter.

Al Qareem and Dallas Star forced a strong gallop to the point of creating a pace collapse but, far from being stretched, Al Riffa looked born to the trip, so much so that one wondered why he hadn’t been running over it before the second half of this season.

At the other end of the trip scale, Amo Racing continued their excellent season in Curragh sprints, David Egan picking correctly in a difficult decision between Arizona Blaze and Bucanero Fuerte, the two of them going at it from a long way out and the three-year-old finding plenty to win.

This success brought his Curragh form figures to an impressive: 1213311.

Precise fractions

Two of the most interesting races of the entire weekend were the Moyglare Stud and Vincent O’Brien National Stakes. As ever with similar races run over the same course and distance on the same card, time comparisons can be useful and the colts produced a much faster overall time, 2.4 seconds quicker than the fillies.

Still, Moyglare winner Precise would be my pick of the two races, if not the entire weekend. The relative dawdle of the Moyglare in which stablemate Composing got a soft lead was against her more than most, and she raced furthest back off the three Ballydoyle fillies while being hung out away from the rail. Initially outpaced entering the final two furlongs, she picked up strongly and found plenty to win, Ronan Whelan saying that her work rider had told him she does little in front. She is hard to oppose for the rest of the season, whether she goes to ParisLongchamp, Newmarket or beyond.

The runner-up Beautify was off a break and weak in the betting but travelled best of all and doesn’t want any further than this, while connections of Venetian Sun will surely give her another try at seven furlongs after this effort. She didn’t get a proper go on Sunday as the Ballydoyle trio created a pocket around her.

Finish of the weekend was the Vincent O’Brien National Stakes as Zavateri swept from the rear to lead and then repelled Gstaad when that one came at him late. Gstaad hit a brief flat spot, as he had in the shorter Prix Morny on his last start, so he may need a bit of winding up while the well-backed Italy proved a disappointment. He looked a difficult ride.

IRISH Champions Festival was one of the few Irish meetings where all races were priced up ante-post, no mean feat considering some of the 17 events were tricky to assess, though in truth these markets are little more than a tease for punters.

That is not because of a general fear of a selection not making the race, or a specific worry about the ground changing last weekend, but rather old-fashioned margin as the prices offered to punters came with significant mark-up.

Most of these ante-post markets were priced into the high 100s in percentage overround terms and, even allowing for non-runners, that is a bit much, making it hard to find a good bet.

To be fair, that margin was greatly reduced after declarations and by Saturday morning there was some decent value on offer. By 10am on the day of the race, the nine races at Leopardstown were priced to 112%, 124%, 107%, 111%, 109%, 114%, 107%, 129% and 138%, with more than a couple of those being overbroke in the place book, or ‘bad each-way’ as the bookmakers would say.

They presented a far more palatable set of prices than what was available midweek and suggest that while a punter may spot something well ahead of the day, it makes sense to wait to strike the bet.