Weekend Review / Timeform / 29 June 2009 / Leave a comment

The Timeform team look back over another weekend that ended in Classic success for Ballydoyle.

At Newcastle on Saturday, Som Tala made all to land the Northumberland Plate, the richest staying handicap in Europe on the Flat, with a purse of just over £110,000. Mick Channon's consistent galloper benefited greatly from a front-running ride to deny Wells Lyrical with the top-weight Friston Forest holding onto third.

The sole Group race on the card, the Group 3 Chipchase Stakes, fell to the veteran sprinter Knot In Wood for trainer Richard Fahey, who secured his first Pattern race success at the age of seven. At Newmarket, the Group 3 Criterion Stakes was won in comfortable fashion by Imbongi trained by South African Mike De Kock, betraying significant market weakness in the process.

Over in Ireland, the Curragh staged the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes for fillies and mares over a trip of a mile and a quarter , and the British were able to wrestle the prize from the Irish through the John Gosden trained Dar Re Mi. Under a front-running ride from Jimmy Fortune, Dar Re Mi was just able to hold off the persistent challenge of the 25-1 outsider Beach Bunny, and survived a stewards enquiry to land her first Group 1 prize. Britain was unable to repeat the feat in the Group 3 Curragh Cup, when the Luca Cumani-trained Mad Rush trailed in a disappointing last, with the Dermot Weld-trained mare Profound Beauty landing the prize after a surviving a stewards enquiry, from the fast-finishing Alandi.

The Curragh also staged the 60th running of Group 1 Irish Derby, in which the 2000 Guineas and Epsom Derby winner Sea The Stars was a late defection, due to John Oxx deeming the ground too soft for his superstar to attempt to confirm his superiority over his Epsom victims. In his absence, the Epsom Derby runner-up Fame And Glory strode to an impressive five-length victory under Johnny Murtagh, to give Aidan O'Brien his seventh victory in the race and his fourth in a row.

He also secured second place, through Golden Sword, who had finished fifth in the Epsom equivalent. Alfred Nobel secured a double on the day for the Ballydoyle maestro in the Group 2 Railway stakes, continuing the trainers domination of the race, while old-stager Benbaun landed his seventh victory on the Curragh turf in the Group 3 Sapphire stakes.