Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
A huge fight to lower Aidan’s Flag
TOUGH and consistent three-year-old Flag Of Honour gets the vote in tomorrow’s Comer Group International Irish St Leger, one of four Group 1 events on a Curragh card which forms the second part of Longines Irish Champions Weekend.
Surprisingly, just one of the classic generation
(the recently retired
Order Of St George) has won the final classic of the Irish season since Vinnie Roe landed the first of his four Legers in 2001. And a trio of threeyear-olds will tomorrow bid to become only the fifth of their generation to land the prize.
The Joseph O’brientrained Latrobe, gutsy winner of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby before being caught out over an inadequate trip in York’s Juddmonte International, heads a disappointing field of just six for tomorrow’s classic, three of them trained by Aidan O’brien and one by Joseph.
And Donnacha
O’brien’s mount is attempting to become the first horse since Zarathustra (in 1954) to complete the Irish Derby/ St Leger double in the same season.
But I’ve been impressed by the progress made by Flag Of Honour in recent starts and believe he might have Latrobe’s measure tomorrow.
Ryan Moore’s mount saw off stable-companion Giuseppe Garibaldi in the Curragh Cup before holding one of tomorrow’s rivals Twilight Payment by a half-length in the Irish St Leger Trial, also over this course and distance, last month.
He’s officially rated 1lb inferior to Latrobe but is proven over this trip and gets the vote in a field which also includes his stable-companions Idaho and Cypress Point. And John Gosden will send 114-rated Weekender, which will be ridden by Frankie Dettori.