Even So

Ger Lyons has been competing at the top table of Irish racing for well over a decade and recorded breakthrough Classic success in 2020 when Siskin (First Defence) stormed to G1 Irish 2000 Guineas glory under Colin Keane at the Curragh. The pair didn't have to wait long to record their second when, just five weeks later, Even So (Ire) (Camelot {GB}) landed the Irish Oaks. Lyons has a typically-strong team of older horses to go to war with this season. Tough Talk and Hellsing appear to be the pick...

   There have been a lot of football analogies in racing this week. Most have centered around a hypothetical situation whereby the Kevin De Bruynes or the Erling Haalands of this world were leaving the Premier League for sunnier-and more lucrative pay packets-in foreign leagues.     For all the Manchester City fans out there, you can relax, as the analogy was simply fictional. However, there is nothing fictional about the mass exodus of talent facing British and Irish racing.    Ger Lyons is better qualified than most to speak about...

There may have been relative silence at The Curragh in July when the Ger Lyons-trained Even So (Ire) (Camelot {GB}) won the G1 Juddmonte Irish Oaks, but in the Boland household at Piercetown Stud in Meath the decibels were likely to have hit the high notes. Eight months previously the stud's owner Ronnie Boland and his son Aaron had bought a Footstepsinthesand (GB) half-sister to Even So as a foal at Goffs November for €22,000 and the now yearling filly will return to the sales ring with a massive update...

Ger Lyons took his second Irish Classic of the season on Saturday with the Coolmore-owned Even So (Ire) (Camelot {GB}) and is already looking forward to her 4-year-old season. "A real plan hasn't been made, but her real career could kick in at four because there's a good programme for the older fillies," he said of the three-time winner. "There's obviously the Yorkshire Oaks, but I wouldn't be in a rush to take on Love, without talking to connections they let all of their horses take each other on, but...

G1 Juddmonte Irish Oaks CAYENNE PEPPER (IRE) (Australia {GB}-Muwakaba, by Elusive Quality) Bred by G H S Bloodstock & J C Bloodstock, Cayenne Pepper was offered by Bumble Mitchell as a foal at Tattersalls December, where she was selected by Harriet Jellet for Jon Kelly for 195,000gns. Last year's G3 Flame Of Tara S. winner now races in the colours of Kelly's wife Sarah. Cayenne Pepper is inbred 4x3 to Allegretta, her third dam Saleela (Nureyev) being a half-sister to Urban Sea and King's Best. ENNISTYMON (IRE) (Galileo {Ire}-Lahinch {Ire},...

There's a heavier bias towards smart homebreds but of those who went through the sales ring, the prices for the runners in the Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas started at just €1,000. Albigna (Ire) Zoffany (Ire) - Freedonia (GB) (Selkirk) Classy Niarchos family homebred who won the G1 Qatar Prix Marcel Boussac and G2 Airlie Stud S. last term before running fourth to Sharing in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies' Turf. Her dam won the G2 Prix de Pomone and is herself out of a half-sister to GI Breeders' Cup...