Tattersalls Irish 2,000 Guineas: Hannon goes for the Power play

Trainer Richard Hannon has supplemented Shifting Power for the Tattersalls Irish 2,000 Guineas at the Curragh on Saturday, May 24th, and Coral make him a 6/1 shot to land the spoils.

The colt, who won the Free Handicap on his seasonal reappearance, defied his 50-1 starting price to finish fourth stablemate Night Of Thunder in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket.

The son of Compton Place kept on to be beaten three lengths, and is set to renew rivalry with the runner-up Kingman who finished 2 1/2 lengths in front of him.

The John Gosden trained colt lost his unbeaten record when sent off the 6/4 favourite for mile contest, but only went down by 1/2 a length and is the 4/6 favourite with Coral to go one better in the Irish equivalent.

Champion Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien is bidding for his 10th win in the Curragh contest, and War Command heads a possible team of four for the Ballydoyle handler.

The son of War Front kept on to be beaten 5 1/4 lengths into ninth behind Night Of Thunder at Newmarket, and is 6/1 with Coral to reverse the placings with Kingman and Shifting Power and land the spoils in Ireland.

That may not be out of the question, as O’Brien is attempting to win the contest for the fourth consecutive year and Roderic O’Connor (2011) and Power (2012) both scored after finishing well out of contention at Newmarket.

Great White Eagle, Fountain Of Youth and Michaelmas are the other O’Brien runners among the 16 declarations for the Group 1 contest , in which another very interesting hope for the home team is Mustajeeb.

Trained by Dermot Weld, the son of Nayef was beaten three lengths by War Command on his final as a juvenile in a Group 2 contest at the Curragh.

However, that was just Mustajeeb’s third start and he looked to have done well physically before winning very impressively on his recent reappearance in the Group 3 mile contest at Leopardstown.

After being held-up off the pace, Mustajeeb showed a devastating turn of foot and lengthened well to win going away by 2 1/2 lengths from Brendan Bracken.