Ouija Board completes English-Irish double

Ouija Board engraved her name in the annals of history this weekend when she became only the tenth filly to achieve the English-Irish Oaks double at the Curragh.

The margin of the three-year-old’s win in Ireland on Sunday was somewhat less impressive than her seven-length devastation of the field at Epsom, but jockey Kieren Fallon maintained that the filly had gone to sleep for much of yesterday’s race. But when horse and rider pounced in characteristic fashion in the final straight, victory was “a piece of piss.”

“She’s unbelievable, amazing, the way she switches off and then accelerates,” said Fallon. “She didn’t quicken away like at Epsom, but that’s because she’s got so laid back.”

In her achievement, Ouija Board emulates a string of fillies before her, but she actually went one better in recording the fastest time by a filly over a mile and a half at the Irish track (2 mins 28.25 secs).

So impressed was her owner, Lord Derby, who had supplemented the filly at the last moment for a mere €40,000, that he has threatened to have several more horses in training next season; Ouija Board at present stands for quality rather than quantity in his line-up – she is his only horse in training.

Punctilious, who suffered a humiliating showdown in the English version of the race last month, lived up to expectations by producing a much snazzier performance yesterday. She went down by just one length to Ouija Board, eliciting a hope from Godolphin racing manager that she could “try and win a Group 1 before the end of the season.”

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