City Of Dubai inflicted a shock defeat on hot favourite Oklahoma to add his name to an illustrious roll of honour in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden at Killarney.
Aidan O’Brien has saddled two subsequent Derby winners to land this one-mile contest in the past seven years, with 2018 scorer Anthony Van Dyck claiming Classic glory at Epsom the following season and last year’s winner Benvenuto Cellini bouncing back from disappointment on the Surrey Downs to win the Irish Derby.
Having chased home highly-regarded stablemate Giant Sequoia on his Curragh debut just over two weeks ago, Oklahoma was a prohibitively priced 30-100 favourite to open his account in County Kerry – but after being sent straight to the lead by Wayne Lordan, he was unable to resist Paddy Twomey’s 8-1 newcomer City Of Dubai, who finished off strongly under Billy Lee to score a shade cosily by half a length.
The eyecatcher of the race was Francillon, who came from off the pace to beat Oklahoma to the runner-up spot.
Of the winner, Twomey said: “He’s a nice horse. He’s a horse that we’ve had a lot of regard for all year and he just came here ready to run.
“I thought if he did things right he could do what he did and if it went wrong he could finish fourth, that’s exactly what I told the owners this morning.
“There is a good history in the race and if we can be half as good as some of the previous winners I’d be happy.”
The trainer expects City Of Dubai to step up in trip in due course, but has no immediate big-race targets.
“His mother is by Galileo and he’s by Mehmas – I think he’ll get a mile and a quarter as a three-year-old,” he added.
“He’s a big, scopey horse with a staying pedigree. Today was a start and I’d like to take another step, if we can, before I get into anything (big).
“I think he’s very much a three-year-old so we’ll see how we go.”