Team Tabor take Curragh's opener

East-meets-west bred Henry Longfellow (5/4f) led home a 1-2-3 in owner Michael Tabor's colours in the Curragh's opening Juddmonte Irish EBF Maiden today, scoring impressively on debut for trainer Aidan O'Brien.

Ridden by Ryan Moore, Henry Longfellow raced professionally and quickened well to comfortably beat the Joseph O'Brien-trained Mythology and the winner's stablemate Master Of The Hunt

Henry Longfellow, by Godolphin's Dubawi and out of Coolmore's top Galileo-racemare Minding, is owned by Tabor, John Magnier and Derrick Smith while added to the ownership of the runner-up and third-placed horses are Georg Von Opel's Westerberg & Peter Brant and Jim Cockburn's Teme Valley Racing.

Following the race Aidan O'Brien reported “I'm delighted with him. He's a Dubawi out of Minding and he looks a lovely horse. She (Minding) handled that ground and he does bend his knee a bit but he quickens. You'd have to be very happy with him.

“Ryan said it was very easy and he said he didn't touch him with the stick, he was very happy with him. He had been working well, he just came on the scene lately. For the last three weeks, week after week he was working well.

“He's an exciting type of horse.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a 19th century American poet and educator.

Quotes from Gary Carson