THE Irish Champion Stakes rarely fails to deliver a season-defining storyline and unlike most history, the narrative is not always about the winner.

Whether it is Australia getting beaten at 3/10 in 2014, Frankie Dettori and Golden Horn wiping out Pat Smullen and Free Eagle in 2015 or St Mark’s Basilica hanging across Tarnawa in 2021, what happens to the beaten horses is often as engaging as the victors.

2023 might be another of those years with what occurred back in the field, but above all the race will be remembered as peak Ballydoyle teamwork.

That teamwork began in the parade ring as the precious Auguste Rodin was slowly escorted around by his two stablemates Luxembourg and Point Lonsdale, and continued in the race itself as the trio held the most prominent positions from early on and ultimately provided the winner and runner-up.

O’Brien, Moore, Heffernan and McMonagle got their choreography spot on though they were helped by some overly patient rides in behind, the camera shot that best illustrates this coming side-on about four furlongs out when there was the guts of 20 lengths between first and last.

The pace was strong judging on the resultant time figures but there was no coming back at that point; on a track where the going was fast and pace was holding up through the day, there is only so much ground that can be made up.

Ryan Moore is a magnificent jockey with a high strike rate in standard races but give him the advantage of teamwork and he becomes very difficult to beat, the edge from knowing what is likely to happen is massive, allowing that such plans can go awry.

Consider the following numbers, borrowed from the excellent Paul Fitzgerald (@Cav_TRF) on X/Twitter which look at Ryan Moore’s base strike rates in all races and then compared with when he and Seamus Heffernan both ride for Aidan O’Brien in the same race, the figures taking in flat races in Ireland and Britain since 2018.

RYAN MOORE'S STRIKE-RATE

There would clearly be some noise in these figures but in all cases his strike rates improve when the two are involved for O’Brien while they skyrocket to an amazing 45.3% when both ride for Ballydoyle and Heffernan takes the lead.

Best on the day

So was Auguste Rodin the best horse on the day? The way he travelled suggested yes, and he may do an awful lot in front. On this evidence, 10 furlongs is a better trip for him than a mile and a half and Ballydoyle had signalled as much with how they set up the pace for his two Derby wins, sending runners to the front but those horses were more about moderating the gallop than forcing it.

Moore mentioned afterwards that ‘not many horses can do’ both Derbies and the King George and in hindsight, Ascot was almost certainly the wrong race for him with his speed, and his rider taking him out of the contest early probably helped. The Arc, over the same trip and likely on worse ground, will surely not be considered next for him.

Still, a length covered the first four home and while Luxembourg may have been beaten on merit, there were grounds for thinking neither the third nor fourth were, especially so Nashwa.

Course Track sectionals show her covering the ninth, tenth and eleventh furlongs faster than anything in the race while her final furlong was only 0.01 seconds slower than Alflaila, scarcely believable that she was able to maintain such a move.

Hollie Doyle commented afterwards that she ‘couldn’t have gone much quicker’ but those times might suggest otherwise, and, on this evidence, Nashwa is up to winning a Group 1 against males though it is a slight concern that she has had a busy period, for all that she often thrives on racing.

Kevin Stott lost his role with Amo Racing after the weekend, though not apparently due to his ride on King Of Steel for all that his owner was not fully satisfied with the steer.

Perhaps Stott could have had his mount closer to the pace as a 12-furlong horse cutting back to 10 furlongs and the speed he showed over the longer trip, especially at Epsom and Ascot, didn’t fully translate down in distance.

There is another possibly – that King Of Steel wasn’t good enough – and with Nashwa having come from further back and still finished in front of him, that could well be the case though we may learn more before year end.

THEY say there is something in Shakespeare for everyone which might even extend to punters, and I was reminded of Hamlet’s famous lines to his pal – ‘there are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy’ – following Auguste Rodin’s second resurrection of the year on Saturday.

So it is with betting markets; there is much more going on there than the black and white of past performances and what a horse did last time.

Reading and listening to the previews of the Irish Champion Stakes, very few (and I include myself in this) seemed to give Auguste Rodin any chance with comments like ‘can’t have him’ and ‘very hard to back’ being common.

Yet he turned out to be just about the best backed horse in the race, sent off at 11/4 favourite, a reminder that the ‘meedja’ are but a small part of these markets.

His return to form called to mind the much-improved effort of Facile Vega in the Supreme following his DRF flop and while that one didn’t win, he was strong in the betting and ran a fine second, shaping better than the result.

I am not advocating simply backing these star horses off bad runs blind – that would be as bad as saying they can’t win – but this might be a lesson not to be as dogmatic about their chances.

AIDAN O’Brien may have dominated the feature race of last weekend, and added four other winners along with it, but there was a spread of other winning trainers, four of them trained in Britain.

Some of the lower profile Irish trainers produced their horses in excellent shape too. Ken Condon gets pride of place for landing the Flying Five with Moss Tucker on his 30th start while Big Gossey took the ‘Bold Lad’ for Charles O’Brien having his 47th outing.

Natalia Lupini won the Ingabelle with Kitty Rose and people that know better than me say she is a fine, big filly with a future beyond juvenile races, while she also went agonisingly close (yes, I was on!) to winning the ‘Sovereign Path’ with Dunum.

Inexpensive

Lupini is also doing this with relatively cheap horses. Of the five runners she had over the weekend, the three that were sold publicly cost 32,000 euros, 20,000 guineas and 12,000 guineas while Dandyville was bought back by his vendor for €6,000 and Dunum was not sold for €2,800. Even allowing for not all sales prices being what they seem, that is good going.

Gerry Keane also landed a notable success in the ‘Northfields’ with Crystal Black, bought for €35,000 last autumn out of the Weld yard.

The former Moyglare horse had run well in both the Irish Cambridgeshire and ‘Northfields’ back in 2021 for his old yard, finishing sixth and third respectively, and after a few below-par starts for Keane on slow ground in spring, was again primed for both races, finishing a close third in the former and landing the latter when looking very well-suited by the step to up to 10 furlongs.