Dermot Weld’s esteemed career has been characterised by several landmark moments and there was another at The Curragh on Sunday as the master of Rosewell House delivered the high maintenance Search For a Song (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in perfect order to record back-to-back wins in the G1 Comer Group International Irish St Leger. In receipt of all the allowances when taking the race by the scruff of the neck in dynamic fashion 12 months ago, the Moyglare Stud homebred was content to creep into contention from rear this time as Oisin Orr played the waiting game. Travelling like the winner a long way before she loomed at the side of the ultra-game Ebor H. winner Fujaira Prince (Ire) (Pivotal {GB}) at the furlong pole, the 7-1 shot who had been pulled up during her penultimate start in the July 5 G3 Munster Oaks asserted for a two-length success as Twilight Payment (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) earned third place, a neck further behind. “At times she is difficult to keep right, but when she is right she is very good,” commented Weld, who was joining the late great Dr Vincent O’Brien on nine winners of this prestigious prize and who had earlier captured the G1 Prix Vermeille with Tarnawa (Ire) (Shamardal). “She was highly-geared earlier in the year and very unlucky in Cork, but also lucky as the man riding her used his head when he pulled her up after getting the bump on the bend. She was very free in the early part of the year as well, but that’s my job to train them and teach them. I had to get the confidence of the filly to learn to relax–it took time to her get her right, but it just shows that patience still pays dividends.”
Much water has passed under the bridge since Weld produced Vintage Crop (GB) (Rousillon) to land him his first Irish St Leger in 1993, weeks before that legendary performer pulled off the unthinkable at the time by becoming the first overseas-trained winner of the G1 Melbourne Cup. At that stage, Vincent O’Brien was at the end of his career but by the end of the decade Aidan was in command at Ballydoyle and the Irish racing scene was at the beginning of its revival. Twenty years into the new century, the strength-in-depth in the sport in this country exemplified by this weekend is remarkable, yet Weld is still more than capable of mixing it with the legions of competitors within the nation’s boundaries. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” the man who also trained the record-holding four-time Irish Leger hero Vinnie Roe (Ire) (Definite Article {GB}) succinctly stated in his post-race interview. “You have the best trainers in the world and I would say the best horses and maybe the best jockeys. You are only as good as your team and it’s been a special day. It’s my ninth Leger and I’ve trained her for the day for a long time.”
Search For a Song was in charge all of a mile out in the 2019 renewal, where she tanked Chris Hayes to the front and stayed in the clear as Kew Gardens (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) stayed on in her slipstream. That was only her fifth career start, having previously finished fourth in the G1 Irish Oaks here and won York’s Listed Galtres S. so expectations were high that she could go on to do something special as a 4-year-old. Instead, she was well below-par when sixth in the 10 1/2-furlong G2 Mooresbridge S. here June 12 and things hardly improved as she stumbled badly on the first bend during Cork’s Munster Oaks. As a result she was 50-1 for the July 26 G1 Tattersalls Gold Cup at this venue and having been detached ran on strongly to be third before being pulled out of the course-and-distance G3 Irish St Leger Trial S. when in season Aug. 14.
“I wanted to get that run into her over a mile and a quarter in case people thought she was just a staying mare and you saw what the filly that beat her in the group 1 did yesterday,” Weld explained. “I was quietly confident today and it was lovely from Oisin, who was only 23 the other day. He switched her off beautifully. He’s put a lot of work into her, settling her and relaxing her to have her totally at ease and turning in I felt she would come and win. Chris [Hayes] rode her beautifully last year, don’t get me wrong, but Oisin has wonderful hands and he fills horses with confidence. I love horses getting into a rhythm and making gradual progress and that’s what he does very well. I thought that if everything went right, we had a great chance of a group 1 double as the autumn has always been the target for both her and Tarnawa and they are both peaking now. When you win the Vermeille and Irish Leger on the same day and you’re training only 100 horses, which is no number of horses in Ireland nowadays, you get a very big kick out of it. There is one more group 1 for her in France and then I look forward to training her next year. I’ll have to talk to Eva-Marie [Bucher Haefner] about it.”
Search For a Song is one of six individual black-type and five group winners out of the incredible Polished Gem (Ire) (Danehill), whose other daughter of Galileo, Amma Grace (Ire), had run second at 50-1 in the card’s appropriately-named G2 Moyglare “Jewels” Blandford S. Search For a Song’s other full-siblings of note are the Listed Esher S.-winning stayer Falcon Eight (Ire) and the 2-year-old colt Kyprios (Ire), a winner for Ballydoyle on debut at Galway on Tuesday. Polished Gem’s Free Eagle (Ire) (High Chaparral {Ire}) was one of the best runners for this stable in recent times, winning the G1 Prince of Wales’s S. before taking up duties at the Irish National Stud. She also produced the seven-times group-winning Custom Cut (Ire) (Nonowcato {GB}), the triple group scorer Sapphire (Ire) (Medicean {GB}), whose finest hour came when capturing the British Champions Fillies & Mares S. when it was a group 2, and the Australian group 3 winner Valac (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}).
Polished Gem’s dam is the 1988 G1 Irish 1000 Guineas heroine Trusted Partner (Affirmed), whose leading performer was the GI Matriarch S. and G2 Sun Chariot S. heroine Dress To Thrill (Ire) also by Danehill. On another day when Moyglare bloodlines came to the fore, Trusted Partner is also the third dam of this fixture’s G1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National S. hero Thunder Moon (Ire) (Zoffany {Ire}) and was already the ancestress of the G3 Sirenia S. winner Love Lockdown (Ire) (Verglas {Ire}) and G1 Criterium International winner Vert de Grece (Ire) (Verglas {Ire}). The third dam Talking Picture (Speak John) landed the GI Matron S. and GI Spinaway S. before producing five stakes winners of which four share the US Triple Crown winner Affirmed as a sire. They include Easy To Copy, whose descendants are the G1 Grand Prix de Paris and G1 Sydney Cup hero Gallante (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}) and Silence Please (Ire) (Gleneagles {Ire}) who was second in Saturday’s G3 Kilternan S.
Sunday, Curragh, Ireland
COMER GROUP INTERNATIONAL IRISH ST LEGER-G1, €400,000, Curragh, 9-13, 3yo/up, 14fT, 3:06.50, gd.
1–SEARCH FOR A SONG (IRE), 134, f, 4, by Galileo (Ire)
1st Dam: Polished Gem (Ire) (Broodmare of the Year-Ire), by Danehill
2nd Dam: Trusted Partner, by Affirmed
3rd Dam: Talking Picture, by Speak John
O/B-Moyglare Stud Farm Ltd (IRE); T-Dermot Weld; J-Oisin Orr. €232,000. Lifetime Record: Hwt. 3yo-Ire at 14f+ & SW-Eng, 9-4-1-1, $771,456. *Full to Falcon Eight (Ire), SW-Eng & GSP-Ire; and Amma Grace (Ire), GSP-Ire; and 1/2 to Free Eagle (Ire) (High Chaparral {Ire}), Hwt. Older Horse-Eur at 9.5-11f, G1SW-Eng, GSW & G1SP-Ire, $926,416; Sapphire (Ire) (Medicean {GB}), Hwt. Older Mare-Ire at 11-14f, MGSW & G1SP-Ire, GSW-Eng, $518,947; Custom Cut (Ire) (Notnowcato {GB}), Hwt. Older Horse-Ire at 7-9.5f, MGSW-Eng & Ire, $951,925; and Valac (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}), GSW-Aus, $277,097. Werk Nick Rating: A+++ *Triple Plus*. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree.
2–Fujaira Prince (Ire), 137, g, 6, Pivotal (GB)–Zam Zoom (Ire), by Dalakhani (Ire). (90,000gns Ylg ’15 TATOCT). O-Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum; B-Rabbah Bloodstock Ltd (IRE); T-Roger Varian. €80,000.
3–Twilight Payment (Ire), 137, g, 7, Teofilo (Ire)–Dream On Buddy (Ire), by Oasis Dream (GB). (€200,000 5yo ’18 GOFHIT). O-Lloyd J Williams; B-Jim Bolger (IRE); T-Joseph O’Brien. €40,000.
Margins: 2, NK, 3. Odds: 7.00, 3.00, 4.50.
Also Ran: Barbados (Ire), Passion (Ire), Sovereign (Ire), Micro Manage (Ire), Raa Atoll (GB). Click for the Racing Post result or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
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