TAKING centre stage at the Curragh today is the Group 3 Tote.ie Alleged Stakes (2.55), which features the return of last year’s Betfred Derby third White Birch for John and George Murphy.

Chantal Regalado-Gonzalez’s high-class son of Ulysses built a smart resume last term, winning the Ballysax Stakes on his comeback before finishing second in the Dante Stakes ahead of his Epsom third. After a blip in the Irish Derby, he bounced back to form when fourth to Adelaide River at the Irish Champions Festival.

A useful field has been assembled for this Group 3 contest, including Noel Meade’s talented duo of Layfayette and Helvic Dream, Aidan O’Brien’s French Group 2 winner Greenland and 2022 Beresford Stakes scorer Crypto Force, making his debut for the Adrian Murray team.

George Murphy told The Irish Field: “We’re looking forward to getting him started for the season. He’s in good order. Hopefully he’ll be fit enough to cope with the ground and give a good account of himself.

“He’s probably a little behind where he would have been this time last year in terms of readiness; he had been racing later into the previous year when winning at Dundalk that November. It looks a very good race this weekend.

“I think his best trip is probably a mile and a half, but on testing ground for his first run of the year you’d be hoping a mile and a quarter will be the right thing for him.”

White Birch holds Group 1 entries for the Tattersalls Gold Cup and Coronation Cup over the coming months. Are those races likely targets for the grey?

“Both of those races are high on the list for us going forward,” said Murphy.

“He seemed to handle the track well at Epsom last year so the Coronation Cup would look a definite possibility but we’ll see how things go this weekend first and speak to the owners afterwards about where they’d like to go.”