The lineup for the JRA Stakes at Leopardstown to grace the tracks now moves up to six contestants
John Oxx’s recent maiden breaker, Born To Sea will now find six others at the JRA Killavullan Stakes at Leopardstown to contest for the title. His victory through a remarkable performance at the Irish Field Blenheim Stakes made connections grow confident
and decide to send him for testing in the Group 3 race.
The juvenile has proved himself already, but being the half brother of an all time great, Sea The Stars, does not come easy as he is under pressure by constantly being compared and analyzed against the accomplishments of his brother.
Murtagh said: "I'm looking forward to riding him again. There has obviously been a lot of hype about him because of who is brother is, but he's got plenty of ability as well”.
Aidan O’Brien has set his team for the juvenile race that will include three participants representing him alone. They include Nephrite, Vault and Ishvana.
Nephrite won the Irish Stallion Farms European Breeders Fund Two-year-old Maiden on 25 September, at the Curragh on a field set for twenty-three contestants. Kevin Prendergast trained Big Blue Spirit came second and the third was Bird’s Eye View trained
by T Stack.
The Irish juvenile Vault has raced six times during the year till yet and has won two out of the six runs. The first was the Irish Stallion Farms European Breeders Fund Two-year-old Maiden on 3rd June at Curragh.
The next race that he won was the Irish Stallion Farms European Breeders Fund Two-year-old Nursery on 30th July.
The third contender from Aidan O’Brien’s stable is the Irish bred, Ishvana, who broke her maiden on 15th April this season and since then has not won any of the next two races that she participated in.
The remaining entries in the race include David Marnane trained Seanie, While You Wait trained by J S Bolger and Kevin Prendergast’s under charge Aaraas.
Born To Sea will share the track with all these contestants but his capability should not be benchmarked with that of his brother as the juvenile colt still have a long way to go and will improve further gradually.
“He has a certain degree of his brother's ability for sure, we'll just have to see how much he has”, added the trainer.
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