Jockey Ryan Moore acknowledges the crowd after Los Angeles’ win. (Breandán Ó hUallacháin photo)
By Breandán Ó hUallacháin
Los Angeles (9/4 favourite) added another Group 1 race to his record with victory in the Tattersalls Gold Cup at The Curragh, Ireland.
Trained at Ballydoyle, County Tipperary, by Aidan O’Brien, the son of Camelot was having his second victory of the 2025 season.
Running prominently throughout the €500,000 contest, the 2024 Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby winner was in third position behind his stable mate Continuous (50/1) and Deepone (80/1) at the halfway stage of the race.
Taking the race lead two furlongs from home, the colt who provided master trainer Aidan O’Brien with a 16th win in the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby at The Curragh last summer, was challenged on his outside by British-trained challenger, Anmaat (8/1).
The latter, in the colours of Shadwell Stud and ridden by Jim Crowley, looked to be travelling better than the eventual winner at that stage. The Owen Burrow seven-year-old son of Awtaad led narrowly momentarily inisde the one-eight pole.
This brought the best out in Los Angeles as the colt, bred by Lynch Bages Limited and Longfield Stud, relishes a battle. He eye-balled his opponent and soon found more for jockey Ryan Moore, eventually putting a half-length between himself and the staying-on runner-up, though the margin of victory was not a true reflection of how easily Los Angeles crossed the finishing line.
The Juddmonte Farms-owned and bred Kalpana (5/2), winner of the Group 1 Qipco British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes at Ascot, England, last October, improved to third position inside the final furlong of the one mile two furlongs race. The Oisín Murphy-ridden four-year-old daughter of Study Of Man, who crossed the line a length behind the runner-up, kept on well ahead of White Birch (3/1) and claimed third spot from the John Murphy-conditioned five-year-old grey by a head.
“Delighted with that (performance),” was the initial reaction of Los Angeles’ handler, Aidan O’Brien.
“He’s a hardy, tough horse, and he’s at his best when the pace is on. You would find it hard to believe how strong and powerful he is until you stand beside him. He is so relaxed.
“It was a very good race and they were high-class horses. It was a very clean, strongly-run race. The pace was solid. There was no place to hide out there. Any race throughout the year will find it hard to stand up to the rating of all these horses. When they are all added up, it is going to be an incredibly high rating. All the top middle distance, mile and mile and a quarter horses were there – that is very unusual.”
With the Group 1 Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at ParisLongchamp the main season target, journalists asked O’Brien about the colt’s third place finish in the race last year.
“The run in the Arc last year didn’t suit him at all,” he admitted. “He got left in front by himself and all he was doing was waiting. It was a bit of a mess for him. He’s a big, idle, relaxed horse and when he was there all he was doing was waiting for them to take him on.
“When the pace is on in front of him, he’ll follow any pace. No horse likes to fight better than him. We were over the moon with him last year as we knew what we did wrong – we should have had someone to take him along.”
Los Angeles opened his 2025 campaign with a win in the Group 2 Coolmore Stud City Of Troy Irish EBF Mooresbridge Stakes earlier this month over the same course and distance as the Tattersalls Gold Cup.
The four-year-old Los Angeles is a son of Camelot, who O’Brien trained to win the Epsom Derby and the Irish Derby. Both Camelot and his son, Los Angeles, are owned by the Coolmore partnership.
Following his seasonal return three weeks ago, O’Brien pointed at the Tattersalls Gold Cup and admitted that the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot would then be the next target. With the season already provisionally set out for the Ballydoyle colt, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot, a Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe trial, and finally the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at ParisLongchamp on the first Sunday in October are his other season targets.
As Aidan O’Brien admitted after the colt’s most recent Group 1 win:
“He is an exciting horse going forward.”
