Irish Derby Festival 2026 Results: Benvenuto Cellini Wins, O'Brien's Record 18th

Good to Firm going greeted Pretty Polly Day, the Curragh's second Group 1 focal point of the weekend and the traditional stage for the best fillies and mares in Irish and British training.

Estrange denies the Oaks winner

Estrange (13/8) took the Paddy Power Pretty Polly Stakes for jockey Danny Tudhope and trainer David O'Meara, beating One Look (18/1) by a length and a half with Red Letter (8/1) third. The market leader, Thundering On (11/10), the Epsom Oaks winner sent off favourite on the strength of that form, could only finish fourth. It was Estrange's first Group 1 win at the third attempt: she had been beaten into second in two Group 1s the previous season, the Yorkshire Oaks at York and the British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes at Ascot, and this time she made all the difference late, closing from sixth in the eight-runner field to lead close home. It was also the first Irish Group 1 of O'Meara's training career, a notable result for a Yorkshire yard that operates well outside the Coolmore and Ballydoyle circuit that dominated the rest of the weekend.

The supporting card

Aidan O'Brien and Ryan Moore doubled up in the Airlie Stud Stakes (Group 2, for two-year-old fillies): the odds-on Sun Goddess (2/7) justified favouritism, beating Green Empress (9/1), trained by Joseph O'Brien. The Anglesey Stakes (Group 3, for juveniles) went the other way: Ballinea Star (16/1), trained by Robson Aguiar and ridden by Donagh O'Connor, beat stablemate Immortal Guard by half a length, with the O'Brien-trained odds-on favourite Confucius (1/3) a close third. Two Group races, two very different market outcomes on the same card.

The Saturday card also carries the Ladies Derby, a Curragh fixture unique on the racing calendar and open to professional and amateur female riders alike. The 2026 running went to Fixation, ridden by amateur Miss Georgie Benson for trainer J P Murtagh, in a competitive 12-runner field.

Saturday 27 June winners

Race	Winner	SP	Jockey / Trainer
Anglesey Stakes (Group 3)	Ballinea Star	16/1	Donagh O'Connor / Robson Aguiar
Airlie Stud Stakes (Group 2)	Sun Goddess	2/7	R L Moore / A P O'Brien
Paddy Power Pretty Polly Stakes (Group 1)	Estrange	13/8	D Tudhope / D O'Meara
Neville Homes Summer Fillies Handicap	Meriden	7/2	Chris Hayes / D Hogan

For the Derby itself and the rest of Sunday's card, see the next section below.

Good going and eight runners went to post for the 2026 Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby, off at 16:35 and run in a time of 2m 28.33s.

Benvenuto Cellini's redemption

Benvenuto Cellini (7/4 favourite), ridden by Ryan Moore for Aidan O'Brien, won the 1m4f Group 1 by 1¾ lengths from stablemate Christmas Day (4/1), with Pierre Bonnard (9/1) a neck back in third and Raaheeb (11/4), trained by British raider Owen Burrows and previously unbeaten going into the race, six lengths further back in fourth.

The win completed a comeback from a bruising Epsom experience. Benvenuto Cellini had a leg caught up on the stalls when the gates opened at Epsom three weeks earlier and was subsequently declared a non-runner, an incident Moore later described bluntly: "Epsom was just a mess. Obviously we had the stalls problem... because of what happened he had no hope." [Source: Sky Sports, 28 June 2026.] O'Brien kept faith with the horse and Moore stayed loyal to the ride rather than switching to a stablemate, a decision that paid off at the Curragh.

It was Aidan O'Brien's 18th Irish Derby win, extending a run that now stands at four in a row (Auguste Rodin 2023, Los Angeles 2024, Lambourn 2025, Benvenuto Cellini 2026), and it gave him the first three home in the race for the ninth time. Combined with Christmas Day's Epsom win and Constitution River leading home the first three in France's Prix du Jockey Club, it capped O'Brien's third Derby of the 2026 season.

The rest of Sunday's card

Dermot Weld saddled the odds-on Purview (Evens) to win the International Stakes (Group 3, 1m2f) under Colin Keane, holding Joseph O'Brien's Trustyourinstinct by less than a length, a rare Group success for a yard outside the Coolmore operation on Derby Sunday. Weld's plans for the four-year-old now point towards the Irish Champion Stakes and possibly the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in the autumn.

Earlier, the popular Big Gossey (5/2), trained by Charles O'Brien and ridden by Billy Lee, won the Listed Jebel Ali Dash Stakes over the minimum trip, a 12th career win at the Curragh from his 89th career start, a true course specialist. William Haggas sent out the British raider King Of Earth (4/1) under Tom Marquand to take the closing Maddenstown Handicap, a reminder that UK-trained horses travel well for the Curragh's valuable handicaps even on a card dominated by Ballydoyle.

Sunday 28 June winners

Race	Winner	SP	Jockey / Trainer
Jebel Ali Dash Stakes (Listed)	Big Gossey	5/2	Billy Lee / C O'Brien
Dubai Duty Free International Stakes (Group 3)	Purview	Evens	Colin Keane / D K Weld
Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby (Group 1)	Benvenuto Cellini	7/4	R L Moore / A P O'Brien
Maddenstown Handicap (Premier Handicap)	King Of Earth	4/1	Tom Marquand / W J Haggas

Full field: 1st Benvenuto Cellini (7/4), 2nd Christmas Day (4/1, 1¾L), 3rd Pierre Bonnard (9/1, nk), 4th Raaheeb (11/4, 6L). [Sources: Racing Post results, Sporting Life results, Sky Sports, cross-checked 19 August 2026.]

That closed the 2026 Irish Derby Festival. For what the weekend's results actually told us, read on.

O'Brien's strength in depth, not one horse

The 2026 festival was billed as a "Double Derby" story before it started: whichever colt won at Epsom would be the warm order to repeat at the Curragh three weeks later. That is not quite how it played out. Christmas Day won the Epsom Derby on 6 June by 2¾ lengths, the slowest renewal since 1983 on testing ground, but ran into his own stablemate at the Curragh and had to settle for second. Benvenuto Cellini, who had missed Epsom entirely as a non-runner, won the race Christmas Day had been favourite to repeat in. Read the Epsom form line in our Epsom Derby 2026 result. The real story of the weekend was less about one dominant colt and more about the depth of the Ballydoyle string: three O'Brien-trained runners filled the first three places in the Derby itself, and an O'Brien-trained horse also won the Airlie Stud Stakes. Dermot Weld's International Stakes was the closest thing to an outside result all weekend.

O'Brien's own numbers bear this out. He landed his first Irish Derby win in 1997 as a 27-year-old, and since then he has won roughly 60% of every renewal run, a level of dominance no other trainer anywhere in the sport approaches in a single Group 1. [Source: Sporting Life, 28 June 2026.]

The market split roughly down the middle

Across the two Group 1s, the market got it right once and wrong once, which is closer to the honest long-run picture than either extreme. Benvenuto Cellini obliged at 7/4. Thundering On, sent off the 11/10 favourite for the Pretty Polly on the strength of her Oaks form, did not, beaten into fourth by the 13/8 shot Estrange. Favourites do not lose every year, and they do not win every year either; treat any "always back the jolly" or "always fade the jolly" framing of a single festival's results with the same caution.

A first Group 1 outside the big yards

Estrange's win mattered beyond the result itself. David O'Meara trains from Nawton in North Yorkshire, well outside the Coolmore and Godolphin operations that dominate the Irish Pattern programme, and the Pretty Polly was his first Group 1 success in Ireland. Dermot Weld's International Stakes winner, Purview, was a similar note: a real outside-the-big-three result on a card otherwise monopolised by Ballydoyle.

Where this sits in the calendar

The Curragh's next Group 1 assignment is the Irish Champions Festival at Leopardstown in September; see our festivals hub for the full autumn calendar. For form study on either Group 1 winner, the AI Race Predictor's track record shows how the model's calibrated probabilities have performed against British racing; Irish fixtures sit outside its current coverage, so no prediction was published for either race here.