Fallon Bids For First Irish Derby Success It is 140 years since Selim crossed the line to win the first running of the Irish Derby.Now in 2005, the Curragh is promising the best Derby festival ever to celebrate the illustrious birthday of what is undoubtedly Ireland's premier sporting and social event of the summer. Jockey Kieren Fallon bids for his first Irish Derby success on board the likely favourite, the Andre Fabre trained Hurricane Run, in the Budweiser sponsored spectacular on Sunday. Following his unlucky second in the French Derby at Chantilly three weeks ago, Hurricane Run is likely to face strong opposition from another Gallic raider, Walk In The Park, who was runner up in the Epsom Derby earlier this month and represents trainer John Hammond who trained the brilliant Montjeu (sire of both Hurricane Run and Walk In The Park) to win this famous race in 1999. The home team will be headed by David Wachman's Fracas, winner of the Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial at Leopardstown prior to finishing fourth in the English equivalent at Epsom while Aidan O'Brien is likely to be triple handed with Gypsy King, fifth in the English Derby, hoping to show improvement on that effort while he will also saddle both Scorpion and Yehudi. Trainer John Oxx is bidding for his third win in the race in the last six years and relies on the lightly raced Shalapour, the mount of Michael Kinane. There are two English trained raiders engaged in the race with Clive Brittain's Bahar Shumaal, a recent easy maiden winner at Sandown, strongly fancied by connections who supplemented him into the race at a cost of ?95,000 last Tuesday morning, while the Mark Johnston trained Brahimy Kate, who finished second in the King Edward VII Stakes at York last week, is also likely to take his chance. Strangely, there has not been an English trained winner of the Budweiser Irish Derby since Henry Cecil's Commander In Chief scored in 1993. The last five runnings of the Budweiser Irish Derby have produced five Irish trained winners and trainer John Oxx, who was victorious with Sinndar in 2000 and Alamshar in 2003, will be represented by Shalapour who will be bidding to give his owner, H.H. The Aga Khan, a sixth victory in the race.
