Jessica Harrington ha defied the odds so many times during her groundbreaking career, but rarely as spectacularly as her 50/1 shot Hotazhell landing the Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.
Having won almost every big National Hunt race since starting her career almost 40 years ago, the 79-year-old trainer from Moone, Co Kildare has transformed herself into a major player at elite level on the flat over the last decade.
That status was underlined in remarkable style in the €1.25 million highlight of the first leg of the 13th Irish Champions Festival.
Ignored by punters, Hotazhell and Shane Foley plotted a dramatic route through one of the deepest Group One fields of the year to hold the 33/1 Wimbledon Hawkeye by the minimum margin of a nose in a desperate finish. The 11/8 favourite Constitution River was third.
“I know he was an outsider, but I knew he was better than that and I dared to hope,” said Harrington.
However, there was a sting in the tail for Foley, whose stretch drive saw him pick up an 11-day suspension for carless riding. It was his third similar riding offence in the last six months.
Despite Hotazhell’s SP, Harrington was a popular winner less than 90 minutes after a groundbreaking moment at Doncaster.
A new page was turned in the 250-year history of the Betfred St Leger as Saffie Osborne became the first woman to ride the winner of an English classic.
The 24-year-old daughter of trainer Jamie Osborne struck on Joseph O’Brien’s Leger second-strong Highwayman, an 11/1 shot, who proved two-and-a-half lengths too good for his stable companion Enceladus. Aidan O’Brien’s 22/1 outsider Amelia Earhart filled the frame.
Largely dwarfed in profile terms by Leopardstown’s leg of the Irish Champions Festival, the old race conspired to serve up a milestone for the sport. O’Brien was at Leopardstown, although it hardly mattered as Osborne was firmly centre stage.
It was a first Group One success for the Englishwoman, whose services were snapped up the previous Monday. The glut of top-flight racing had O’Brien scrambling for options. Billy Loughnand got the prized spin on Enceladus but it was ultimately Osborne’s day.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been speechless in my life, and I didn’t have this on the bingo card for this week,” said Osborne. “I didn’t have a ride in the race on Monday morning, let alone one with a chance, and I can’t thank so many people enough.
“Firstly, Joseph and his team for putting their faith in me, it won’t change Joseph’s life, but it will change mine. My agent Tony Hind, I would be nowhere without him, and I know it’s cliched but my mum, dad and whole family.
“This means the absolute world. As I crossed the line, I was in shock. I just can’t believe it and it just doesn’t feel real. I was more forward than I anticipated, but he was travelling so well into it, I couldn’t believe it.”
Rachael Blackmore enjoyed a pioneering riding career over jumps, but Osborne is joining select company. It’s four years since Hollie Doyle won the French Oaks on Nashwa. In 1993, Julie Krone landed the final leg of the US Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, on Colonial Affair.
Harrington has been a trailblazing figure for longer than all that, and her readiness to dream big paid off in spectacular style once again.
Hotazhell, a Group One winning juvenile as a two-year-old, endured a blank 2025, including finishing fourth to Delacroix in last season’s Irish Champion Stakes. He only regained wining form in a Group One in Munich in July.
Any snootiness about German form got blown out of the water on home ground as he defined the odds with grit to match his speed under a determined Foley.
“I didn’t think he deserved to be 50-1,” said Harrington. “He’d won a Group One in Germany last time and came here in good form. If you look up all his form from last year it was on ground that was too quick for him. He kept on trying, he got his conditions today and he went and did it.
“Shane is very strong, but the horse is very tough. He knows where the winning post is and he put his head down on the line.”
Foley’s ride was penalised by the stewards after appearing to lean into Oisin Murphy, who was trying to launch a run on A Boy Name Susie outside the furlong pole. A concertina effect looked to result in the Ballydoyle pair, Hawk Mountain and Lambourn, being snatched up. A Boy Named Susie also looked to suffer interference closer to home.
The big disappointment of the race was Item, winner of the Juddmonte International, who never looked at ease on his first trip outside of Britain, failing to land a blow in sixth.
It was an unexpected reverse for Colin Keane, who still enjoyed a lucrative 32nd birthday with another Group One victory on Blue Bolt in the Coolmore Matron Stakes. He also landed the day’s opener on another Juddmonte filly, Maire Rua.
“It was an easy watch to be honest,” trainer Andrew Balding said of his odds-on winner. “You just have a little bit of jitters when you’re expected to win but, watching the race, we never really had an anxious moment. Colin was always in the right place. It was run at a true gallop and she looked very good.”
English jockey James Doyle was also on the double, first aboard Quddwah in the Group Two Sononaway Stakes and made all to score for Godolphin on the supplemented Arabian Crown in the Group Three Kilternan Stakes. Keane could finish only third on Purview. Maire Rua’s trainer Ger Lyons quickly followed up with Krasimir in a handicap.
Classic colts such as Auguste Rodin and Australia have won the big juvenile contest on Day One of the Irish Champions Festival on route to Derby glory at Epsom and Darkness Falls is a new 7/1 favourite for English racing’s ‘Blue Riband’ after beating his HKJC Golden Fleece Stakes by over four lengths.
Newly promoted to Group One status, and lengthened to nine-furlongs, the stamina test looked ideal for Darkness Falls who justified strong market support as an evens favourite. The impact was such that even the inscrutable Ryan Moore admitted to loving him.
“Ryan said the trip is going to be no problem, a mile and he’s going to get a mile-and-a-quarter next year. He’s just has a lot of class,” said Aidan O’Brien.
“It’s an unbelievable race to have on here at this time. It’s a lovely first running of it. It’s going to be a very important race and all the good horses were there, all the good type middle-distance horses.
“It’ll be hard for a classier Derby-type horse to come out than this, the way he did it the last day and the way he did that today. It was a proper gallop, there was nowhere to hide out there. He has a lovely nature, which makes him really special. He’s very exciting,” he added.