Juvenile Watch: O'Brien unleashes a potential star among early winners

You can catch up with Ross's first two columns by clicking here. They include youngsters to note, star performances in the early weeks of the campaign and much more.

Ribchester is yet to have a winner in the UK or Ireland, from five runners, but the former top miler has been swift to make an impact on foreign shores.

Wesley Ward, who knows a thing or two about fast two-year olds, unleashed one of his daughters, Ruthin, over five and a half furlongs at Keeneland last week and she won easily despite showing inexperience in the closing stages.

Ward has compared Ruthin to Campanelle, another British-bred filly, who won the Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot last year for the same owner/trainer partnership. It would be no surprise to see them aim Ruthin at the same race.

Ribchester, whose three Group One wins included the Queen Anne Stakes in 2017, has a number of entries for the coming week. They include Gisburn, entered at Doncaster on Saturday and mentioned in last week’s column as one to watch.

Another entry of note is the Ed Dunlop trained Gidwa, owned by Shadwell Estate. Gidwa dam, Gheeda, either won or placed second in all four of her starts at two.

When you train a string of horses that has both the quantity and quality that is available to Aidan O’Brien, it stands to reason that he will train plenty of two-year-old winners. Yet in recent seasons first time out juvenile winners from Ballydoyle haven’t featured as often as you would think.

That has changed in spectacular style this season with four out of his five two-year old debutants winning. The other, Amalfi Coast, met with plenty of trouble in running.

The breeding arm of Coolmore have invested significant resource in recent years to find a suitable sire line as an outcross for their broodmare band which is understandably heavily influenced by multiple champion sire Galileo.

Scat Daddy was a sire they recognised as a good potential outcross and interestingly sons of Scat Daddy are the sires of three of the four winners, Caravaggio with two and No Nay Never with one.

It is possible that the influence of Scat Daddy in the Coolmore breeding programme is giving O’Brien a more precocious two-year old to train and this may account for the upturn in the number of debutant winners. It’s only a theory but one that I will continue to explore.

To my eyes the two standout performers from the four winners have been fillies in Tenebrism and Contarelli Chapel.

Tenebrism (Caravaggio x Immortal Verse) won over 5f at Naas in late March when she travelled strongly and showed a smart turn of foot. She drew further clear all the way to the line suggesting that she would have no problem in staying further. The performance (watch above) can be marked up as this race wasn’t limited to just fillies. Lord Gorgeous, who was third, has won since.

Contarelli Chapel (Caravaggio x Chenchikova) won over 6f at Naas on Monday in a style similar to that of Tenebrism. O'Brien suggested afterwards that she is a likely runner in the Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Her turn of foot was very smart and she won by more than five lengths from the well-touted Ger Lyons-trained newcomer Juncture.

Contarelli Chapel is a half-sister to multiple Group One winner Fancy Blue and could easily be a contender for next year’s Qipco 1000 Guineas, for which William Hill quote her at 16-1. She is also this week’s Star Performer and I think has the potential to go to the top.

O’Brien will undoubtedly send a strong team to Ascot but if Cadamosto - one of the four winning debutant - were to feature, it would be worth noting that he has already been a non-runner three times for being “off his feed”. This suggests to me that he could be a highly sensitive horse and as such might not thrive on long distance travel.

Throughout the season, I’d like to offer an insight from those that have encountered this year’s two-year olds in the early stages of their life, including breeders, yearling consignors, pre-trainers and breeze up producers.

This week Johnny Hassett, who is now in his second decade of consigning breeze-up horses, gave me his thoughts on his crop for this year.

“We’re not quite halfway through our sales season, but I’m very happy with how things have gone, as with everything concerning horses you always need a slice of luck but so far so good,” he said.

“Each year I try and improve the quality of yearling I buy, with my ultimate ambition being to sell a Guineas winner. I’m confident that the horses I’m selling this year are as nice as any I’ve had.”

Two that have been through the sales ring already and that are definitely worth keeping an eye out for are:

LEOPOLD BLOOM (Ulysses x Zuhoor Baynoona)

Hassett said: “We sold him at the Craven Sale in Newmarket. He made 95,000gns and has gone to David Loughnane. His breeze gallop at the sale wasn’t reflective of what he’d shown us in the build-up to the sale.

"I have a lot of belief in this horse, his half-brother was a winner over 6f as a two-year old, and I think David is a trainer on the up, I’m never afraid to back my opinion and I’ve actually kept a leg in him. David has been pleased with his progression since he’s had him.”

He said: “We were offered 150,000gns at last week’s Doncaster sale. That would have been a good profit on the 16,000gns we paid for him as a yearling, but I didn’t think it was a suitable amount for a horse of his ability so I’ve rolled the dice and brought him home.

"He wouldn’t have a typical pedigree for a Doncaster breeze-up horse as he’s bred to stay further than 6f, yet he still recorded a breeze time that was comfortably inside the top ten of the whole sale. I’ve sold one leg in him and may yet sell another. The plan is to win a maiden and then hopefully head to the Chesham Stakes at Royal Ascot. I love the horse.”