Minnie Hauk dazzles in Curragh comeback, eyes Tattersalls Gold Cup next
Minnie Hauk swept to a 1-length-and-3/4 Curragh return, with Aidan O’Brien calling the Tattersalls Gold Cup the plan after a perfect prep.
Minnie Hauk’s smooth return at the Curragh did more than put another black-type prize on the board. It looked like the first real sign that Aidan O’Brien may already have another major middle-distance filly ready for the season’s biggest tests.
Sent off the 4/6 favourite in the Clem Murphy Memorial Irish EBF Mooresbridge Stakes, the dual Oaks winner travelled with purpose and settled the six-runner Group 2 on her terms, beating stablemate Edward Hamilton by 1 length and 3/4 with Adelaide River third. The race carried a winner’s prize of €78,000, but the bigger reward was visual: Minnie Hauk returned with the same fluency that made her one of the most accomplished fillies of 2025, and she did it without looking as though the run had taken anything out of her.
That matters because this was not just a seasonal opener, it was a test of whether she could step straight back into the upper tier of the older filly and mare division. O’Brien said he wanted “a nice, even pace” so Minnie Hauk could get back into gear, and the response was exactly what he was seeking. She “travelled with all the zest she did last year” and “won very snugly,” he said, adding that “the Tattersalls Gold Cup is the plan” and “that was the perfect prep for it.”
On paper, the comeback also sharpened the case for her ceiling. Minnie Hauk, a Frankel filly out of Multilingual, is already a four-year-old with the Epsom Oaks, Irish Oaks and Yorkshire Oaks on her record. She had also been edged out by a head by Daryz in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe before finishing sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, so the Curragh run suggested that the winter has not dulled her class. Ryan Moore gave her a straightforward ride from draw 7, and when a filly of this quality returns under control rather than under pressure, it usually points to a bigger target still to come.
That target is already clear. The Tattersalls Gold Cup, scheduled for 24 May at the Curragh over 1m2f110y with a €300,000 winner’s prize, now looms as the real examination. O’Brien has won the Mooresbridge with horses such as Magical, Minding, Found, Camelot and So You Think, a roll call that shows how high the bar is for this particular trial. Minnie Hauk did not just clear it. She looked like a filly who could make the older middle-distance scene more competitive the moment the serious races begin.
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