Curragh preview: Star filly Minnie Hauk returns to action

Minnie Haukis the star attraction at the Curragh on Monday as Aidan O’Brien’s top-class filly makes her seasonal reappearance in the Clem Murphy Memorial Irish EBF Mooresbridge Stakes, live on Racing TV.

The daughter of Frankel enjoyed an excellent three-year-old campaign last season, completing a Group One hat-trick with victories in the English, Irish and Yorkshire Oaks before being beaten a head by Daryz in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

She ran below expectations on her final start of the year at the Breeders’ Cup, but will be a short price to get back on the winning trail in a Group Two contest her trainer has won 14 times.

O’Brien said: “We have just a little more time from this to the Tattersalls Gold Cup than we would from the Huxley Stakes (at Chester on Friday), so Lambourn will go to Chester instead.

“She’s done very well and has changed a good bit from three to four. She’s turned into a four-year-old and sometimes they don’t, so that is good to see and she’s ready to start.”

Minnie Hauk’s rivals include Joe Murphy’s Coronation Stakes heroine Cercene, Johnny Murtagh’s Shaool and the Joseph O’Brien-trained Beset.

Elsewhere on the card the O’Briens go head to head in the Listed AES Recycling First Flier Stakes, with Aidan’s Dundalk maiden winner New Yorker facing off against Joseph’s Star Prospect, who lived up to his name with an impressive course and distance success on his debut a fortnight ago.

Aidan O’Brien saddles the hot favourite for the Coolmore Stud Henry Longfellow Irish EBF Tetrarch Stakes in Madrid Handicap winner Causeway, while his stablemate Drop Dead Gorgeous will be similarly well fancied for the Group Three Coolmore Auguste Rodin Irish EBF Athasi Stakes after looking the part on her introduction at Naas in March.