Three Irish horses to follow

With the resumption of Irish Flat racing just over two weeks away, here are three horses that could emerge from beneath the radar over the coming months.

Ennistymon
Aidan O’Brien
This home-bred daughter of Galileo was one of a number of promising types which Aidan O’Brien introduced at the Curragh Derby meeting last summer, unfortunately she didn’t get the chance to fulfill that early promise for the remainder of last season as she was not seen out again, but she could well be quite smart. She met a lot of interference on that Curragh debut before finishing strongly.

She is a filly of some promise, and winning a maiden should be a formality on the way to much better things, indeed as she holds an entry in the Irish 1000 Guineas, there would have to be a chance of her being thrown in at the deep end quite early. It would obviously be a good sign if that were the case.

Capablanca
Pat Flynn
There was indeed plenty to like about the slightly belated debut effort of this Dansili colt at Limerick last summer and it looked certain that there would be plenty of improvement to come from him.

Slowly into stride, he could never get into the race and when he was ridden in the straight he had his head to one side and was very green, but he kept running on and ran to the line to be beaten just over nine lengths in a far from disgraced manner.
His other two runs were both on soft ground and were quite nondescript, but he earned a mark of 60, and if he gets some good ground he could prove to be a very well-handicapped horse.

By Dansili, there is plenty of stamina on the distaff side of his pedigree, so there is every possibility that he will step up in trip sooner than later. He has a nice bit of ability.

Mosala
Henry de Bromhead
This colt by Kodiac showed a nice bit in a slowly run Curragh maiden on his only start, his trainer certainly likes him and it would be no surprise if he was good enough to win a maiden somewhere.

He was one of the picks of the paddock amongst a generally good looking bunch of juveniles on his Curragh debut in July. In the race itself, he was settled off the quite slow pace, travelled reasonably well and about a furlong out it looked as though he was going to improve on the outer and get involved, but he was green and probably needed it. In the end his rider just rode him out hands and heels.

He’s a likeable enough colt with plenty of middle distance form on the distaff side. With a winter on his back and some good ground, he could well make a name for himself over the summer months.