Gstaad justified short odds and secured classic glory when fully living up to expectations in Saturday’s Tattersalls Irish 2000 Guineas at the Curragh. Runner-up to the exceptional Bow Echo in the Newmarket Guineas earlier this month, Gstaad started a 4/11 favourite for the first Irish classic of 2026 and always looked in control. Ryan Moore drove Gstaad to the front outside the furlong pole and the partnership ran out three lengths clear of Distant Storm. The latter’s Godolphin 40/1 stable companion Pacific Avenue filled the frame. It was a 13th success in the colts’ classic for Aidan O’Brien who nominated Royal Ascot’s St James’s Palace Stakes as a next port of call for Gstaad. That will mean a return clash with Bow Echo, but also the French Guineas winner Rayif. Gstaad was cut to 11/4 for Ascot’s feature.Almost as happy as O’Brien perhaps will be the Bow Echo camp. The horse rated the best Guineas winner since Frankel skipped the choice of doubling up at the Curragh, but saw their form franked in a race that once again wound up turning into perfect classic compensation. For the fourth time in the last five years, the Newmarket runner-up went one place better in the Irish equivalent. It was a fourth win in the race for Moore, who sat just off the pace set by another of the English raiders, Alparslan. Expectations that Pacific Avenue might also be put into a pace-forcing role didn’t materialise, and in a contest of the sport’s superpower ownerships, it was Ballydoyle that firmly emerged on top.Jockey Ryan Moore with Gstaad, after winning the Tattersalls Irish 2000 Guineas. Photograph: Evan Treacy/PA “It was very straightforward,” said Moore. “We didn’t go that quick early, but he began very quickly, a couple went forward and he was able to coast upside them, and he’s got such a big, extravagant action he just takes a while to get really opened up and to use it; once he’s done that, he was impressive.“It was just getting him organised and getting him flowing, roll on to Ascot I say.”As for potentially reversing form with Bow Echo, the Englishman added: “You would hope that he is progressing. The horse that won at Newmarket was very impressive on the day, so we have our work cut out. “You could say it wasn’t a strongly run race today, he’s beat Distant Storm not quite as far but different track, different conditions, different time of year and our lad is hopefully still going forwards – I think he is – and I think Ascot will suit him.”With a pair of 1000 Guineas victories already this season, and another widely expected in Sunday’s fillies classic at the Curragh, success in the colts’ event was important for Ballydoyle. Emerging on top at Ascot would make Gstaad a hugely valuable sire prospect.“We’ll look forward to it,” said O’Brien. “In Newmarket he was out there all the way, his first run, and he got no cover. It’s very hard to do that in Newmarket. In the last furlong he looked for a bit of company and he went right.“Bow Echo had cover for the first half of the race and when you have cover you come out and always turn in on a little bit. He came to the near side at Newmarket, which is always better. We’d really look forward to Ascot, win, lose or draw. There will be plenty of pace on and we’ll see what happens.”Moore and O’Brien also combined for the narrow Gallinule Stakes winner Causeway, as well as the successful juvenile newcomer Sergei Diaghilev in the opening maiden. The odds-on Causeway was at full stretch to hold off Zia Zabel by a head. Ryan Moore onboard Causeway wins the Gallinule Stakes. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho Moore wound up with a four-timer on Saturday after also teaming up with O’Brien’s son, Donnacha, for Comanche Brave in the Weatherbys Greenlands Stakes.Comanche Brave found easier home waters more productive than some recent tough overseas assignments and justified 6/4 favouritism in some style. February runs in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia yielded lucrative placed efforts before a tilt at the world’s best sprinter, Ya King Rising, in Hong Kong last month. Ultimately getting within six lengths of such a superstar suggested the Greenlands was a suitable opportunity and so it proved. Moore cruised just off the pace before pulling out and Comanche Brave quickened past his rivals to set up a Group One tilt at Royal Ascot. “He’s a good horse and he’s getting better. He’ll go straight to Ascot now for the Jubilee. He’ll go there with a chance anyway. There will be very good horses from all around the world. We want to be competing on the big-stage and he’ll go there with a live chance,” said Donnacha O’Brien.“We were taking Ka Ying Rising on in his back yard and going right-handed around a bend really isn’t this fella’s thing.“He’s better on a straight track but we were still very pleased with that performance, he wasn’t disgraced by any means against useful horses in behind Ka Ying Rising and I think he’s taken another step up today,” he added.Perhaps the most visually impressive winner of the day though was Purview, who turned the Listed Orby Stakes into a six-length saunter on his first start at 12 furlongs.Dermot Weld was giving little away about future plans for the lightly raced Juddmonte four-year-old but it’s hard to imagine Listed races being the limit of his ability.