Irish Champions Festival: The star cast for day two

Venetian Sun, Asfoora, Gstaad and Al Riffa are among the array of stars on show on day two of the Irish Champions Festival at the Curragh.

The Moyglare Stud Stakes is the first of four Group One prizes up for grabs at the home of Irish Flat racing and sees the Karl Burke-trained Venetian Sun put her unbeaten record on the line.

Since making a winning debut at Carlisle, the daughter of Starman has landed the Albany at Royal Ascot, the Duchess of Cambridge Stakes at Newmarket and the Prix Morny at Deauville and now tests the water over seven furlongs for the first time in a race her trainer won with Fallen Angel two years ago.

Venetian Sun’s biggest threat appears to be Silver Flash and Debutante Stakes heroine Composing, who is one of three runners for Aidan O’Brien in a seven-strong field along with Beautify and Precise.

The other top-level juvenile prize up for grabs is the Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes, for which O’Brien’s Coventry Stakes winner Gstaad is a red-hot favourite having finished a close second to Venetian Sun at Deauville three weeks ago.

His five rivals include a pair of stablemates in Dorset and Italy, Joseph O’Brien’s North Coast and two unbeaten British raiders in Saba Desert and Zavateri, trained by Charlie Appleby and Eve Johnson Houghton respectively.

Australian sprinting star Asfoora is poised to make her Irish debut in the Bar One Racing Flying Five Stakes after bagging her second Group One win on British soil in the Nunthorpe at York last month.

She is taken on by 15 opponents, with the home team headed by Adrian Murray’s pair of Bucanero Fuerte and Arizona Blaze.

The last Group One of the day and the final Classic of the Irish Flat season is the Comer Group International Irish St Leger.

The top two in the market are Joseph O’Brien’s Al Riffa and Aidan O’Brien’s Illinois, while Ralph Beckett sends Amiloc across the Irish Sea in search of his sixth win from as many starts.