Minnie Hauk was a €1.85 million sales topper at the 2023 Goffs Orby Sale and could now be on the verge of a prefect career culmination in next Sunday’s Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien is adamant the best has yet to be seen of his star filly despite victories in the Epsom and Curragh Oaks and a defeat of older horses for the first time in York last month.
So as this year’s edition of Ireland’s premier yearling sale starts in Kill on Monday, the stage appears set for Minnie Hauk to provide a defining performance when it counts most in Longchamp’s €5 million weekend highlight.
A rare elite of only seven Irish-trained horses have ever won Europe’s most valuable race, including Alleged, who won twice in 1977 and 1978. Just one of them was a filly. Found led home a historic 1-2-3 for O’Brien in the 2016 Arc run at Chantilly while Longchamp was redeveloped.
Found won as a four-year-old but in 2017 Enable graduated to Arc glory on the back of an almost identical Classic campaign to Minnie Hauk.
O’Brien has indicated that double Arc-winning rider Christophe Soumillon will team up with Minnie Hauk for the first time on a racecourse this Sunday. The filly is likely to be accompanied in the race by stable companion Los Angeles, third to Bluestocking in the race a year ago.
“At the moment, the two very strong possibilities would be Los Angeles and Minnie Hauk. They’re the two that look like going there at the moment. Everything has gone well since their last runs, so that’s what we’re planning at the moment, I think,” O’Brien said at the weekend.
Although Los Angeles would relish cut in the going, the weather outlook for Paris suggests a rare good ground Arc. There are no predictions of rain for the French capital over the coming week.
That has prompted several changes of plan with one top British older horse, Almaqam, all but ruled out, while another, Giavellotto, could now line up in the Longchamp spectacular.
Such ground prospects will only bolster confidence in Minnie Hauk’s chance and she is already a 9-2 co-favourite in some ante-post lists with the top French filly Aventure. The latter was runner-up to Bluestocking in 2024 and earlier this month broke her Group One duck in the Prix Vermeille over course and distance.
Goffs Million: Jack Cleary and groom Mylana Kuspliak after winning with Dorset.
Photograph: Inpho
Other potential Irish interest in this Arc could revolve around John Murphy’s Group One winner White Birch. He was out of the frame behind Delacroix in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown
Sunday’s Arc programme contains six Group One prizes in all, including both the Prix Jean Luc Lagadere and the Prix Marcel Boussac for juveniles.
O’Brien won the ninth Lagadere of his career last season with Camille Pissarro and the strength of his two-year-old team got underlined with a vengeance over the weekend.
True Love was a 19th top-flight success of 2024 for the Ballydoyle trainer in Newmarket’s Cheveley Park Stakes and she could be in the mix for another start this year at the Breeders’ Cup.
Hawk Mountain gave O’Brien a remarkable 22nd victory in Saturday’s Beresford Stakes at the Curragh, but the most profitable win of all came with Dorset in the Goffs Million.
O’Brien’s second string for the €500,000 first prize behind the odds-on Composing delivered apprentice jockey, 21-year-old Jack Cleary, the biggest success of his burgeoning career in a race confined to graduates of last year’s Orby Sale.
“Everyone I’ve been riding for has been very good to me. Aidan fills me with great confidence and he teaches me a lot,” said Cleary, who is originally from Naas.
Separately, there is another double fixture in Ireland on Monday, including black type jumping action in Roscommon.
The Grade Three Ballymore Group Kilbegnet Novice Chase has six runners, but could turn into a head-to-head between Gordon Elliott’s King Of Kingsfield and Westport Cove from Willie Mullins.
The latter is 5lbs well in on official figures, but two miles on decent ground around this track may play better to his rival’s finishing kick.
Colin Keane and Dylan Browne McMonagle will continue their cut and thrust for the jockeys’ title when both go to Down Royal on Monday afternoon. Keane is set to team up with Kalpana in the Arc, but Diego El Queso looks the best of his six rides on Monday, an 87-rating looking a standout in a seven-furlong maiden.