Fran Berry's Irish eyecatchers | Invest in Offshore account next time

Fran Berry picks out three recent runners from Ireland to add to your My Stable trackers – check out his thoughts and the free video replays.

OFFSHORE BAY – 7th, Cork 19/04/2025

Soft ground for Easter Saturday at Cork and the opening race saw a very good performance by the winner in Jagged Edge who quickened up well to win in a nice fashion.

There were some notable performances by some debutants in behind, including the third home Collecting Coin, who looks a ready-made future winner, and the seventh home OFFSHORE BAY.

This filly, trained by Henry de Bromhead, was quite green and showed plenty of inexperience in the paddock pre-race and also on the way to the start.

For much of the first half of the race she was the same and it was only inside the last two furlongs that the penny began to drop with her.

Having been switched to the inside of rivals by jockey Gary Carroll, she made up a lot of ground in a very taking manner to stay on best of all, finishing seventh of 17, beaten seven lengths at the line.

Given the way in which she shaped both pre-race and during the race it was quite a performance to finish off in the manner in which she did.

With the benefit of that experience and a step up in distance she looks a filly that will be winning a maiden in the near future, probably with soft or yielding in the going description, being by New Bay.

I’m sure connections will pick a day with her (she’s entered at Gowran on Wednesday) and she’s definitely a nice filly in the making that just maybe went slightly under the radar on the back of that debut run.

GLITTER AND GLORY – 3rd, Naas 28/04/2025

This opening fillies maiden at Naas has a rich history of producing good fillies making their debut and going on to better things, and the same will probably apply to the winner of this race, Simply Astounding.

She was a very impressive winner for trainer Aidan O’Brien, but it was the performance back in third of GLITTER AND GLORY that caught my eye.

After being slowly away from the gates, she found herself with a wall of horses in front of her at the two-furlong marker and it took a length of time for Shane Foley, once he switched her out, to get her organised.

She finished off the race strongly to get third late on and in quite an eye-catching manner without being unduly knocked about by her jockey.

Given the lack of market support for her on debut and the way the race developed for her, Glitter And Glory can only improve for that experience.

She was only a €14,000 yearling, so she’s qualified for all the auction maidens going forward. Connections will have the option of not having to take on the likes of Simply Astounding and horses of that calibre, and if dropping into auction type races she should be very hard to beat.

She has the potential to keep improving as she goes forward into the season.

LORD CHURCH – 3rd, Limerick 25/04/2025

Away from the unexposed maidens, a handicapper that was very progressive last season for his former trainer, Mick Halford, was LORD CHURCH, who won three handicaps on the bounce and was also just denied on his last two starts for his former stable.

He was subsequently switched to trainer Emmet Mullins, following the retirement of Halford, and he kicked off his campaign with a very eye-catching third on seasonal debut over what would be an inadequate trip of a mile.

It was a really good effort given he was weak in the market and racing on ground that may not play fully to his strengths. He did travel very well through the run having been held up by Ronan Whelan and briefly looked a threat to both the winner and the second before emptying out inside the last 150 yards.

It was a very satisfactory start to his campaign and off a career high mark of 87. He’s been given 2lb by the handicapper, but he still has more improvement on the back of this effort to go forward into premier handicaps, perhaps at a mile and a quarter, and potentially at a mile and a half.

One would imagine he would have targets at the likes of the Curragh on Irish Guineas weekend and from then on into decent handicaps through the summer.

He’s a horse that should be very competitive going forward with the benefit of this seasonal debut under his belt.

Fran Berry’s Irish eyecatchers | Invest in Offshore account next time

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