CORK native, Chantilly-based trainer Gavin Hernon will saddle his first runner in Ireland today when Dare To Dream takes on the Group 3 Staffordstown Stud Stakes (1.45) at the Curragh.

The 31-year-old trainer began his training career in 2018 after gaining extensive experience while working for the likes of Jim Bolger, Mark Johnston, Nicolas Clement and Graham Motion.

He grew up on his on his family’s Castletown Stud and his father Joe is chairman of the European Federation of Thoroughbred Breeders’ Associations.

Dare To Dream won first time out at Deauville and just missed out on Group 3 blacktype when fourth in the Prix d’Aumale at ParisLongchamp, just under two lengths away from Joseph O’Brien’s Kalispera, who finished second.

“It’s an ambitious trip,” he told The Irish Field. “We kind of said when this filly passed the line in Deauville that she needed a track like the Curragh, a good galloping track and a good pace to run at. That, on top of getting her soft ground, I think it’s the ideal conditions for her.

“If you look at her form, she was just in behind Kalispera, and if she improves as much as we think she can, we think she can be really competitive. We don’t have a million options here in France, it has been a bit of an Indian summer.”

Hernon entered the daughter of Camelot into the Irish 1000 Guineas and feels she will come into her own as a three-year-old next season.

“She still has a lot of growing to do,” he said. “She is from the family of Danedream and it’s a family that has always improved. She’ll probably be going further as a three-year-old as well. We just thought this race came at the right time and once we decided the Curragh would be right up her street, we gave her an entry in the Irish 1000 Guineas.

“We thought, if that was a serious option, it would be good to get her over there and see how she travels and see how she handles it and see if she is up to the mark.”

Bells set to ring

Elsewhere on the Curragh card, Bells On Her Toes begins a busy month of racing for Andrew Slattery when she takes on the Listed Darley Irish EBF Brigid’s Pastures Stakes (3.30).

The four-year-old is in a rich vein of form having improved her rating from 72 to 103 in recent months, but she moves down in trip to six furlongs in her bid for a first listed success today.

“She probably doesn’t have the pace for six but a fast pace is really what she wants and the soft ground will help her,” Slattery told The Irish Field. “She’d probably stay a mile but they probably don’t go fast enough in mile races for her, she needs a good gallop to aim at.

“The Curragh is a stiff six so we’d be hoping for the best, she has got her bit of blacktype now so if we could fill it up a bit more it would be even better.”