OF the four cards that make up the August Series at the Curragh, the third often offers the best pointers for the Irish Champions Festival next month as it hosts the two key course-and-distance trials for the big juvenile races on the Sunday of the September meeting,

The Futurity Stakes last Saturday raised as many questions as it answered, however.

One thing we know is that the pace was strong through the first half of the race, Florida Bay getting to the three-furlong pole 2.11 seconds ahead of the leader in the Debutante Stakes over the same trip earlier on the card.

That strong gallop helped Giant Sequoia, a staying type who is already favourite for next year’s Derby, but he was only workmanlike to win by half a length, though there is every chance he will improve for this run, his first in 56 days, and the name of his trainer.

The runner-up Florida Bay had gone hard, overdoing it in the early and middle parts of the race, but that is the sort of free-flowing type he is, and the straight seven furlongs seemed to find him out late, albeit he was not helped by his earlier exertions.

Going hard did not excuse the tame effort from Ronan Whelan in the saddle over the final 100 yards, however, and while a firmer ride was unlikely to change the result, the races are run in reality rather than theory, and the jockey should have been more forceful, even allowing for his subsequent report that Florida Bay made a noise.

The form is hard to rate, while little covered the first four home. Green Dreamer found this trip too sharp, even with the pace, and was out of his comfort zone from early on, but he responded well and the newly upgraded Golden Fleece looks made for him. He is already a course winner at Leopardstown, too.

Even the fourth Nola Soul could reverse form with the ones that beat him here. His trainer and the market said this run might be needed, and he again raced keen which is becoming a trait, but he was keeping on late and remains lightly raced.

Debutante

The Debutante is a much easier race to assess. Green Empress may only have won by a neck, but she was much best and there is more to come and should be very hard to beat in the Moyglare, unless that Group 1 becomes a slog on slow ground.

Joseph O’Brien said she has missed some time since her last run, so this was an ideal prep for the ICF as it was run at a steady gallop and she seemed not to have a hard race, travelling powerfully down the inside rail and quickening up sharply late to win. Her stablemate Dancing Destiny ran her usual honest race on her sixth start of the season and is another that could be suited to the Golden Fleece, while the third Alpha is in danger of becoming disappointing.

She has been the subject of some big talk from her trainer, but Aidan O’Brien must be seeing something at home that hasn’t been there on her last two racecourse starts, only just managing to win the Silver Flash amidst hints of attitude on her penultimate start before being beaten on merit here.

Monogram looked brilliant, but was he?

THE Group 2s were not the only juvenile performance of significance at the Curragh last Sunday as Monogram took the opening maiden in fine style having been as strong in the betting as any debutant this season, eventually sent off 4/6. He won by a short-head, but was value for a whole lot more, coming from last off a slow pace in a race where nothing else from the back of the field got involved. It looked brilliant, and might well prove so, but there were several small caveats with the run.

The form is difficult to assess as the field was made up of newcomers, while he was slow at the stalls too, his head carriage a touch ungainly also though that may have been inexperience.

Huge break

The final group race on the card was the Irish St Leger Trial Stakes and again the pace was slow, but even so Queenstown and Dallas Star got a huge break on the field, the former never looking like he was coming back.

Favourite Carmers ran no race, so this looks one to file in the questionable drawer, though it is possible that Queenstown has improved.

He has not gone well fresh in recent years, so this was an excellent run off a 300-day break, while he is also an unusual horse for Aidan O’Brien to still be training. A six-year-old, and O’Brien has only had two horses as old as that in training since 2020, Broome and Kyprios, he is a gelding too, though the percentage call is to think he was seen to good effect here.

Joseph O’Brien has already won a huge number of races this year, 124 flat winners and counting in Ireland and Britain so far in 2026, a figure just two behind his previous best of 126 in a calendar year back in 2021.That PB is about to be shattered as we enter September, and one of his specialistssubjects this year has been the high value staying handicap.

There are roughly 30 of these races run in Britain and Ireland each year, worth at least £30,000 or equivalent and run over a mile six furlongs or further.

Seventeen of them have been run already in 2026, and O’Brien has won five of them: A Piece Of Heaven in the Chester Cup, Kizlyar in the Ascot Stakes, Comfort Zone, Defiantly and Small Fry at the Galway, Goodwood and York Ebor Festivals respectively.

Modern-day record

That figure already ties a modern-day record, Mark Johnston also having won five such races in 2019, and O’Brien has not been utterly mob-handed either in these events.

His 22 runners is the most by any trainer this year, but Andrew Balding (19 runners), Ian Williams (17) and Charlie Johnston (14) have not been far behind. The mob-handed part may be about to come in the Irish Cesarewitch, where O’Brien holds 28 of the current 83 entries, and he has won the race twice in the four years since it received its major prize money boost.

The English Cesarewitch and the Colm White Bookmaker Handicap will be other targets for him for the rest of the season, but no target is bigger than the Melbourne Cup in November.

In a recent interview on the Nick Luck podcast, the presenter suggested to O’Brien that he could have as many as 10 runners in ‘the Race that Stops the Nation’, and while the trainer did not think it would be quite so many, he has a wide array of options to choose from.