PAT HEALY: This week Pat shares his reaction to Little Big Bear’s impressive win at The Curragh and looks ahead to Baaeed at York.

Little Big Bear

Wow. What a performance. I’m not sure what else I can say about his performance. There haven’t been too many times I’ve been at a racecourse and had the same reaction, obviously with Frankel and Sea The Stars, but my reaction wasn’t far off that on Saturday. I got a similar feeling with Pinatubo in the National Stakes, but it was such a strong renewal of the Phoenix Stakes, I don’t remember many tougher looking two-year-old line ups. I was lucky enough to be at Aidan O’Brien’s open day at the start of the year where he gave him a special mention, so he’s obviously always been on his radar, so to see him justify Aidan’s faith on Saturday was good. He’s certainly entitled to be the 2000 Guineas favourite now.

Dingle Derby

What a day it was at Dingle over the weekend. There was great weather and an unbelievable crowd, people were saying there was 8,000 in attendance for the races! It was brilliantly organised by Mike Sayers and the Dingle Race Committee. Shark Hanlon’s good fortune ran on as his son Paddy, who led up the Galway Plate winner Hewick, rode the Dingle Derby winner. Paddy bided his time nicely in the end and there were great celebrations after. It’s good to see the new generation of jockeys coming along like Paddy Hanlon, Jack de Bromhead, Kian ‘Tubs’ McNally, and Dylan O’Connor. Tubs was leading rider with six winners so a big congratulations.

Tramore

The Tramore four-day festival is underway, and I wish Owen Byrne and the rest of the team the best of luck. It’s going to be fantastic weather and the crowd at Tramore is always fantastic, so I hope it all runs smoothly for them.

York

I’ll be over in York next week, where I can’t wait to see Baaeed in the Juddmonte. Hopefully, I can report back next week with words of disbelief at just how good it is to see this racehorse in the flesh.