The Nick Jonsson-owned dual Gr1-winning pair, the Michael Roberts-trained See It Again and the Justin Snaith-trained Double Superlative, have been entered in the Gr1 Irish Champion Stakes.
Turf Talk reports that the Gr1 Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes, which carries a stake of €712,500 and has a maximum entry of 20 horses, is to be run over a mile and two furlongs on September 14 at Leopardstown.
See It Again – could show his talents in Ireland later this year (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
Jonsson said, “We were approached (by Irish racing) to enter See It Again and I thought if we enter See It Again let’s enter Double Superlative as well. I think they are approaching South Africans and a few other countries. They are going to be paying substantially towards the horse and the trainer who will be going, they basically fund most of it. It’s a tough 2000m event at Leopardstown and they are both horses that stay well, so I thought ‘Let’s have a go’. It’s easier to get them over now (with the recent opening of direct flights to Europe again), so we thought it was a good idea. We will see how they go in the July and the Champions Cup and then, all things being equal, they will go across after that. It’s a helluva race the Irish Champions Stakes.”
Nick is not sure yet of the flight dates and where the horses will be staying or whether they will stay on there after the race.
However, he did add, “If we do send them we will see how it goes and potentially from there you can go anywhere. If you wanted to you could go to Hong Kong or Dubai or anywhere to race. So let’s see how they do against the world’s best, it will be interesting to see how we do against that sort of opposition.”
The Irish Champion Stakes was first run in 1976 and has been won by some famous horses, including Sadler’s Wells (1984), Giant’s Causeway (2000), New Approach (2008), Sea The Stars (2009) and Golden Horn (2015) to mention a handful.
It would be great if Michael Roberts was able to send See It Again out to win, because he won the race as a rider in 1988 aboard the great Henry Cecil-trained filly Indian Skimmer.
A horse who won the Irish Champions Stakes who will be familiar to South Africans is Oratorio (2005), who stood at Avontuur Thoroughbred Farm until being retired recently.
See It Again and Double Superlative are both by Twice Over, who finished third in the Irish Champion Stakes for Henry Cecil in 2010.
- www.turftalk.co.za
