Babouche back to her best in Lacken Stakes

Babouche capped a fine afternoon for Ger Lyons and Colin Keane when returning to winning ways to land the Group 3 Goffs Lacken Stakes at Naas.

Also successful in the other Group race on the card with Lady Iman just over 30 minutes earlier, the victory of last seasons leading juvenile filly made it an afternoon to remember for trainer and jockey.

Although she had beaten Whistlejacket when the pair met in the Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh last August, the two horses had very different form coming into this contest.

While the latter colt had made a winning reappearance at Navan last month, Babouche could only manage fourth on her return at Cork recently.

For the second race running, punters piled in on the Ballydoyle runner, sending Whistlejacket off 4/5f, with Babouche available at 2/1. Treasure Isle led the way under Wayne Lordan but had no more to offer as the two market principals took over inside the two-furlong mark.

With Ryan Moore soon hard at work on Whistlejacket, Babouche swept to the front under Keane, with David Egan briefly going second on Carla Ridge

Whistlejacket rallied to close over a furlong out but Babouche found plenty to go away inside the last 100 yards to win cosily by two-and-three-quarter lengths.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen that this year from her,” said Lyons.

“I’m delighted with the team’s performance. We sucked it up and we went to Cork, it wasn’t the obvious right thing to do but it was the right thing to do for what I was seeing at home.

“We parked the reputation and the ego and we said ‘right go down there, you’re going to get beat because it’s a furlong too short for you. We’ve spent the whole spring trying to settle you down and doing it right’. Now she’s back.

“Now we can go to the Commonwealth and if we get beat we get beat but at least we know we are locked and loaded. It’s been a good day.

“She’s a Group 1 winner but she hasn’t been doing that. I was delighted with what I’ve seen because it was a work in progress but I needed to see that otherwise we weren’t going anywhere — we’ve won our Group 1 so there’s no point in carrying on.

“Now we can off to the Commonwealth, it doesn’t mean we’ll win it but we’re going there with a huge chance.

“When I seen him (Whistlejacket) in Navan and I seen her at home I wasn’t beating him so then I said ‘lads we have to do something’.

“If I rock up in the Lacken without Cork we wouldn’t have done that. It’s brilliant, it’s worked. Sometimes we get it right!”

Paddy Power went 5/1 from 12/1 Babouche for the Commonwealth Cup.

Additional reporting by Gary Carson.