First Cornerstone scores in Futurity for new owner Team
Valor
Team Valor International Chief Executive Officer Barry Irwin had made plans
to visit Germany for this week’s Baden Baden yearling sale, and he ended up
doing some shopping early when stopping over in Ireland to seal the deal on a
listed stakes winner by Hurricane Run last week. That move ended up paying
dividends when the two-year-old colt, named First Cornerstone, won Sunday’s
Group 2 Futurity Stakes at the Curragh.
This race was initially the target of Dawn Approach and Mars, but with an
unfavorable weather forecast casting uncertainty over their participation,
trainer Andrew Oliver took the shrewd step of supplementing First Cornerstone
earlier this week. With no relenting in the rain in Ireland, the two star turns
were absent from the final declarations and the race was opened up further as
Ballydoyle also scratched likely favorite Nevis due to the change in ground
conditions.
First Cornerstone had the form to figure here regardless. He was narrowly
beaten in his debut when a dead-heat third in a seven-furlong Down Royal maiden
on July 27, and showed grit when winning the listed Canford Cliffs Stakes going
nearly 7 1/2 furlongs at 33-1 over heavy ground at Tipperary last out on August
10. In that contest he left a host of smart yardsticks and highly regarded types
trailing — including Dibayani, Einsteins Folly and the O’Brien-trained favorite
King George River — and formlines suggested he had a class edge in this spot.
A €12,000 RNA as a Goffs September
yearling, First Cornerstone was sent off at much shorter odds on Sunday but
found cover early racing in third early as Kingston Jamaica set a strong pace
for stablemate Flying the Flag, who Joseph O’Brien had switched to after the
withdrawal of Nevis. The blaze-faced chestnut received an early slap with Chris
Hayes’s whip with a quarter-mile remaining, and responded to take over from the
tiring front runner with 1 1/2 furlongs remaining.
First Cornerstone was always holding Flying the Flag in the run to the line,
posting a comfortable 1 1/2-length margin, with the British challenger and other
joint-favorite Birdman never able to land a serious blow in third.
“He’s a lovely horse and I fancied him all week,” Hayes said. “Going into the
Tipperary race, you wouldn’t be thinking he was good enough, but he’s a real
nice horse and I liked him from one previous piece of work before his debut.
“When Nevis was taken out this morning, I went through the race with Andy and
we thought we’d ride our own race and let him get into his own rhythm. When we
did, it was smooth sailing from halfway and I just didn’t want to hit the front
too soon as he was green at Tipperary. He’d have no problem stepping up to a
mile and the ground suited him.
“He’s a lovely big horse and he deserves his chance in a Group 1 now.”
Irwin noted that he had been trying to buy First Cornerstone for a few weeks,
but was initially not keen on the idea of running the colt in the Futurity due
to the presence of leading two-year-old Dawn Approach.
“The price didn’t bother me too much, but the trainer and the owner wanted to
run here in the Futurity, and I really didn’t want to because I thought the race
was going to be too tough,” Irwin explained. “(Trainer Andy Oliver) told me he
thought the ground was going to be very soft and heavy, and that a couple of the
horses that were expected to run, he didn’t think they would. I wanted the
horse, so I just bit the bullet and we bought him in the middle of the week,
which didn’t give us a whole lot of time to syndicate him or promote him.”
Team Valor was able to sell half the shares in the horse right away, and will
now look to sell the other half.
Irwin said that prior to purchasing First Cornerstone, he was impressed with
the colt’s races, and the fact that he seemed to be defying his pedigree.
“He’s by a horse that was a mile and a half horse, yet this horse, I wouldn’t
call him precocious, but he’s certainly doing a lot more as a two-year-old than
what you would expect from a Hurricane Run,” Irwin stated. “Every time you see a
horse that does something different than his breeding suggests, that either
means he took after his dam or that means that he’s out of the ordinary. And I
think this horse might be out of the ordinary.”
Irwin noted that he purchased the horse with the intention of bringing him to
America, but he will likely stay with his current yard in Ireland for one more
race before traveling across the Atlantic for the Breeders’ Cup.
“After this race I think my guys would make him eligible for the Breeders’
Cup,” Irwin said. “So just off the top of my head without making a decision or
analyzing it too much, I would think we’d run this horse back in a Grade 1,
either the (September 15) National Stakes (at the Curragh) or the (October 27)
Racing Post Trophy Stakes (at Doncaster), something like that, then we’ll
probably bring him over for the Breeders’ Cup.
“I’d like to run him once more over here just to see what direction we really
want to go in. He was in a pretty good battle (in the Futurity) for a furlong
with a horse I know Aidan O’Brien likes, and he put that horse away, so it’s got
to make you feel good.”
One race following the Futurity, Up drew away to an authoritative 3
3/4-length score in the Group 3 Fillies Stakes going 1 1/8 miles. The Galileo
sophomore ran sixth in the Grade 1 Beverly D. Stakes at Arlington Park just
eight days prior to this breakthrough, and was held up with only one behind
early before moving through to take command passing the eighth-pole.
Up confirmed early promise at two when finishing fourth in last year’s
Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and was then second in the Group 1 Poule
d’Essai des Pouliches at Longchamp on May 13. Prior to the Beverly D., the
Irish-bred miss ran third in the listed Kilboy Estate Stakes over this course
and distance on July 22.
Also on Sunday at the Curragh, My Girl Anna raced in third early taking a
perfect tow from the dueling leaders Inxile and Judge n Jury in the Group 3
Flying Five Stakes. The bay daughter of Orpen was sent past them with a furlong
remaining and toughed it out in the gluepot conditions.
My Girl Anna was runner-up in the listed Land O’Burns Fillies’ Stakes over
this five-furlong trip at Ayr on June 23 and fifth in the Group 3 Summer Stakes
going a furlong farther at York on July 13 before running third in Tipperary’s
listed Abergwaun Stakes back at this trip 16 days ago.
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