Scintillating Snowfall makes it back-to-back Oaks Snowfall added the Juddmonte Irish Oaks to her Cazoo Epsom Oaks with a devastating display in the Curragh. Aidan O'Brien, saddling his sixth Irish Oaks winner, had seen his Deep Impact filly spreadeagle the field by 16 lengths on good to soft ground at Epsom last month and she was out to repeat the feat on fast ground at Headquarters. She went off at a prohibitive 2/7 to beat her seven rivals and sat mid-division under Ryan Moore as her stablemate La Joconde soon raced into a clear lead. The field closed up on La Joconde coming to the final four furlongs and Party House kept Snowfall in a pocket approaching the turn for home. The gap opened wide for Snowfall on the run to the final quarter of a mile and she sailed through it. She had the remainder toiling a furlong and a half out and moved clear by the furlong pole. She was merely pushed out by Moore to come home by eight and a half lengths. Her stablemate, Divinely, finished a remote second at 11/1 with Nicest (10/1) another half a length back in third. “She's very smart and she has a lot of quality,” said O'Brien. “We purposely let her down a little bit from Epsom because the season is going to roll on there and it was soft ground at Epsom. “The plan was to come here, go on to the Yorkshire Oaks and then she'd be ready for the autumn. “I'm delighted with her and she's done very well from Epsom physically, she's got very big and strong. “Ryan said she has a lot of speed. She goes very strong and she finishes out very well. “We'll go one race at a time now, the Yorkshire Oaks first." On her two-year-old form he said: “She's a filly that always had a lot of natural ability and we had to get her to relax a little bit, so we didn't worry too much about it as we were always concentrating on switching her off. “Things went against her. Her first run was over five-and-a-half furlongs in Navan and Mother Earth was second. “Then she came back here to a maiden and Seamus nearly fell off her. That's why it took a few runs to win a maiden and it might have been a blessing in disguise as she became very mature and grown up from it mentally. “Because she was busy early in the season it might have took it's toll at the end of the season, even though she was perfect mentally, physically she had a good few runs. “Herself and Mother Earth ran in the Fillies' Mile and we were nearly siding with her over Mother Earth. That's what we always thought of her. “She's a home-bred for the lads as well, she has some pedigree. “We always thought fast ground was her thing and I was very worried in Epsom about her with that ground.” Moore added: "She's a high-class filly, straightforward and she has done what she was entitled to do. "We went a good honest pace and we had to fight for a little bit of room off the bend, but she has plenty of class and she's very good. It's a pleasure to ride her. "She has done nothing wrong this year - three times she has run and she has stepped up in trip and she has taken it all very well. She's a very exciting filly. I wouldn't say anything is too much of a problem for this filly. "I never like comparing them (fillies), but at the moment she is the best around. "The ground is beautiful, they have done a magnificent job and you wouldn't get better Flat-racing ground." She became the 15th filly to go back to back in the Oaks. O'Brien has now joined Sir Michael Stoute on six winners of the Irish Oaks. Paddy Power made Snowfall 4/6f from 5/4 for the Yorkshire Oaks, and 4/1 f from 11/2jf for the Arc. Additional reporting by Gary Carson
