Buckaroo ready to upset Appleby’s treble chance

Joseph O’brien will be hoping for a good show from Buckaroo in the Tattersalls Irish 2,000 Guineas at the Curragh today, with a view to running the colt in the Cazoo Derby in a fortnight.

Buckaroo, who was narrowly beaten by O’brien’s brother Donnacha’s Epsom hope Piz Badile in the Ballysax Stakes last month, showed a lot of speed to win a Listed race by four lengths back over a mile last time.

In terms of “trials”, the Irish 2,000 Guineas is the last-chance saloon for Epsom, and the Classic appears to be the odds-on shot Native

Trail’s to lose. Victory for the colt, narrowly beaten by his stablemate Coroebus at Newmarket, would give Charlie Appleby a 2,000 Guineas treble, having also saddled Modern Games to win in France.

Aidan O’brien achieved the clean sweep in 2002 with Landseer and Rock Of Gibraltar – the latter won in Britain and Ireland – but no trainer in modern times has done it with three different colts.

“We can always give the Derby a go, too,” said O’brien this week. “But let’s see how he gets on at the Curragh.

Native Trail will be hard to beat but I think we’ll give him a run for his money.”

Yesterday, the last British Derby trial, the Cocked Hat Stakes at Goodwood, was won by Lionel.

The David Menuisiertrained colt, who is in the Irish Derby but has been taken out of Epsom, relished a bit of cut in the ground but had to overcome a slow pace set by Frankie Dettori on Aldous Huxley. “Frankie was getting away with daylight murder up front,” said winning jockey Jamie Spencer. “I think in a true-run race, Lionel would have been far superior.”

Tomorrow, the Willie Mullins-trained two-time Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Al Boum Photo, who began his career with Emmanuel Clayeux, returns to France in his quest to become the first horse since The Fellow to win jump racing’s blue riband and the Grand Steeple-chase de Paris at Auteuil.

Mullins also runs Franco De Port and Burrows Saint, the mount of Rachael Blackmore, in the 16-runner race.