Magical returns in Pretty Polly

PA Sport Reporters
June 26, 2020 1:15 pm

Star mare was initially retired.

Magical faces just four rivals as she makes her return to action in Sunday’s Alwasmiyah Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh.

Aidan O’Brien’s four-times Group One winner was initially retired after her Champion Stakes success last October, after a setback scuppered a planned Breeders’ Cup trip.

However, the five-year-old was then returned to training in the spring and she will make her reappearance over 10 furlongs, with stablemate Fleeting also in the line up.

Jessica Harrington’s highly-regarded Cayenne Pepper is thrown in against the older fillies on her three-year-old debut, with Ger Lyons’ Roca Roma also hailing from the Classic generation.

The five-strong line up is completed by True Self, who was a Group Three winner in Australia for Willie Mullins and was last seen finishing out of the places in Riyadh in February.

The other Group race on the card is the Weatherbys Ireland Greenlands Stakes, in which Denis Hogan’s Make A Challenge makes a quick reappearance after cantering home in front at Naas last Saturday.

Forever In Dreams found another Hogan inmate, Sceptical, too good on her return but she also features among nine contenders, which also include a British raider in the shape of Kevin Ryan’s Queen Jo Jo and Speak In Colours, who finished fifth in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Ascot last week for Joseph O’Brien.