Irish Racing / The Betfair Contrarian / 24 June 2009 / Leave a comment

Odds-on favourite he may be but Sea The Stars will not win the third leg of an historic treble, according to the Betfair Contrarian.

Here's a good pattern: 12 horses in the last 40 years have completed an English/Irish Derby double, which equates to a surprisingly high 30%. However, in recent years it's been the losers at Epsom who have had the biggest impact at the Curragh, and that's just one of the reasons why the Contrarian expects Sea The Stars [1.74] to be denied the last leg of a historic 2,000 Guineas, English Derby and Irish Derby treble. Here are the others...

No horse has done the double for seven years
In three successive years between 2000 and 2002, first Sinndar, then Galileo and finally High Chaparral won the English and the Irish Derby in the same year. Not only was that the last time the feat has been achieved, but just one horse has been brave enough to attempt it - North Light, who finished second at the Curragh in 2004 after triumphing at Epsom. It's even rarer to complete a treble and Sea The Stars is bidding to become the first horse since Nijinsky in 1970 to win both Derbies and the English 2000 Guineas in the same year.

It's a bad time to back Kinane
Just two jockeys in the last 17 years have won both Derbys in the same year and although Mick Kinane was the last man to do so in 2001, the stats suggest a repeat on Sea The Stars is unlikely. Betting a pound on every horse Kinane has mounted at the Curragh since January 27, 2000, would leave you with a headache-inducing £217.22 loss - a bigger deficit than at any other course he has raced at. It has also proven costly to back the 50-year-old jockey in Irish Flat races taking place in June or July in recent years. In 2007, he won just three of the 64 he took part in (4.7%) and last year he managed only three first places in 67 attempts (4.5%).

The Epsom Derby winner rarely wins its next race
In each of the last six years, the winner of the Epsom Derby has been beaten on its next outing. On three of those occasions the horse has finished second, while on another two it has placed in third. The 2006 winner Sir Percy completely flopped, finishing second last of eight in the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes later that year.

Aidan O'Brien has dominated this race recently...
The reigning English and Irish Flat racing champion trainer knows how to train an Irish Derby winner. The Wexford-born 39-year-old is bidding to become the most successful ever trainer in the race by claiming a seventh win this year and the best of his 10 possible entries are Fame and Glory [4.6] and Masterofthehorse [5.2]. Over the last ten years, O'Brien has had 16 horses placed in the race and he has delivered the winner in five of the last eight, including all of the last three.

...and there are reasons to fancy Fame and Glory
Just one of the last seven Irish Derby winners had a win rate of less than 75% in Ireland prior to the race. Sea The Stars has only won two of its three races (67%) in Ireland, having finished fourth at the Curragh in its first outing, whereas Fame and Glory has raced three times in Ireland without being beaten. The last three Irish Derby winners - and four of the last six - were beaten in the Epsom Derby: Fame and Glory and Masterofthehorse finished second and third in it earlier this month while Golden Sword and Gan Amhras also ran. Another bad omen for Sea The Stars is that the last six Irish Derby winners had all suffered defeat in their previous outing.

Sea The Stars might not even run
Trainer John Oxx has confirmed he will pull Sea The Stars out of the Irish Derby if the ground is too soft. He said that it would have been a "borderline" decision on whether or not to run the favourite had the race taken place on Tuesday and suggested that, with the track drying very slowly, any further downpours might be enough to force him out of the race. Oxx added: "We'll make a decision whether to declare him and even then we would have to watch the weather. There is no rush to decide and we could even make a final decision on the day."