Ranked: the ten best winners of the Irish Oaks

Graham Dench counts down the best Irish Oaks winners . . .

10 Dibidale (1974)
Trainer: Barry Hills
Jockey: Willie Carson
Few who followed racing in the early 1970s will forget Dibidale's luckless run in the Oaks, when connections were adamant that a slipped saddle two from home cost her victory. Not many outside winner Polygamy's camp were inclined to disagree, so strongly had she been travelling, but if firmer evidence was needed it was not long coming.

Dibidale had her revenge six weeks later at the Curragh and she could hardly have been more impressive, starting favourite and storming home three lengths clear of Irish 1,000 Guineas winner Gaily, with Polygamy only third.

Barry Hills was on record at the time saying the subsequent Yorkshire Oaks winner was the best he'd ever had. And he had the previous year's Arc winner!

9 Petrushka(2000)
Sir Michael Stoute
Johnny Murtagh
Petrushka did not always look the most straightforward and failed to do herself justice in the 1,000 Guineas and Oaks, but she was quite superb when delivering Sir Michael Stoute a sixth Irish Oaks, turning the race into a procession as she stormed home five and a half lengths clear of the Epsom third Melikah.

Kildangan Irish Oaks: Petrushka and Johnny Murtagh come home aloneCredit: MSI Caroline Norris 50% NO PRIVA

She had a score to settle with Oaks winner Love Divine when they met in the Yorkshire Oaks, and she beat her with authority. Underlining the value of the form, the previous year's Oaks and Irish Oaks winner Ramruma was back in third. The Prix de l'Opera completed a Group 1 hat-trick for the filly.

8 Unite(1987)
Sir Michael Stoute
Walter Swinburn
Unite had her rivals well strung out behind when overcoming inexperience to win by five lengths and three at the end of a very strongly run Oaks at Epsom, a race marred by the injury to favourite Scimitarra. She was just as dominant, although the winning margin was not quite so extravagant, when becoming only the sixth filly to complete the Epsom and Curragh double the following month, chased home once again by the Epsom second Bourbon Girl.

We will never know what heights Unite might have reached owing to her early retirement after bursting a blood vessel when a realistic fancy against Reference Point and co in the King George. Make no mistake though, she was a very good middle-distance filly indeed.

7 User Friendly (1992)
Clive Brittain
George Duffield
The Irish Oaks did not prove the cakewalk many anticipated for User Friendly after her defeat of All At Sea at Epsom. What's more, she might have been a lucky winner, since she scraped home by only a neck from Market Booster under a strong ride from George Duffield, with the three-quarter-length third Arrikala trapped on the rail, full of running, for much of the last two furlongs.

However, it was a terrific finish and User Friendly was among the outstanding fillies of the last 50 years, so it would have been harsh to have excluded her.

For anyone who has forgotten, her Epsom win came only six weeks after her racecourse debut and she went unbeaten through six races, including the Yorkshire Oaks and the St Leger, before finally meeting her match in the Arc when beaten just a neck by Subotica.

6 Peeping Fawn(2007)
Aidan O'Brien
Johnny Murtagh
The merit of Peeping Fawn's half-length second to Light Shift at Epsom was somewhat lost in the euphoria that greeted Sir Henry Cecil's return from the wilderness, but it was a most eyecatching effort from a filly who had only recently won her maiden.

Peeping Fawn looked the sort who would be more at home at the Curragh, and she proved the point with a smooth defeat of the previous year's Guineas winner Speciosa in the Pretty Polly before lining up for the Irish Oaks, where on much softer ground than at Epsom she reversed placings with the winner in no uncertain terms, coming home three and a half lengths clear.

Still far from finished, she added a Nassau and a Yorkshire Oaks to make it four successive Group 1 wins. One of Aidan O'Brien's very best fillies.

5 Snow Fairy(2010)
Ed Dunlop
Ryan Moore
The emphasis might have been on quantity rather than quality when Snow Fairy was sent on to the Curragh after her neck win at Epsom, but that was hardly her fault and she could not have been more impressive. Coming from off the pace in a field of 15, she led a furlong and a half out and ran right away from the rest to finish eight lengths clear of a pack headed by two outsiders.

Snow Fairy (Ryan Moore): Ed Dunlop's third Irish Oaks winner in ten years is among the easiest winners of the race in modern times

If some still sought confirmation that Snow Fairy was a top-class filly she provided it again and again, with top-level wins in Japan (two), Dubai and Ireland again (from Nathaniel and St Nicholas Abbey), plus an unfortunate disqualification in yet another Group 1 in France. A top filly with an electric turn of foot.

4 Ouija Board(2004)
Ed Dunlop
Kieren Fallon
Like User Friendly, Ouija Board was not at her brilliant best at the Curragh, but she won well enough for Kieren Fallon to be able to take it easy on her in the closing stages and still pass the post with a length to spare.

We expected more after her runaway seven-length win in the Oaks, but there was a suggestion at the time that shorter distances would suit her ideally. That opinion lost favour when she went on to deliver plenty more top-class performances at a mile and a half in a long and distinguished career, but when finally given regular opportunities over shorter as a five-year-old she won the Prince of Wales's, an epic Nassau, and a Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf, as well as finishing a neck second in the Irish Champion.

3 Sea Of Class(2018)
William Haggas
James Doyle
There have been plenty of much wider-margin winners of the Irish Oaks than Sea Of Class, but her neck margin over four-and-a-half- length Epsom winner Forever Together does her scant justice.

It was a big step up after two Listed wins at Newbury, but Sea Of Class had shown such class in both that James Doyle felt able to ride her with huge confidence. It was not misplaced either, as she came with a telling run from last place on the wide outside to lead in the last strides without Doyle ever feeling the need to go for his whip.

The career-ending colic which denies her the opportunity of a rematch with Enable is a huge blow, not just to her connections but to all who appreciate a truly brilliant filly.

2 Dahlia(1973)
Maurice Zilber
Bill Pyers
They don't seem to make fillies quite like Dahlia anymore, or perhaps it's more a case of nobody campaigning them quite so fearlessly as Maurice Zilber.

Dahlia was underestimated at the Curragh, having been beaten in the Diane by none other than Allez France, another filly who went on to confirm herself among the greats, for she went off an 8-1 chance.

However, there was no fluke about her impressive three-length defeat of 1,000 Guineas and Oaks winner Mysterious, and anyone who thought there might have been was swiftly disabused of that notion. Just seven days later in the King George, starting an even more surprising 10-1, she was simply breathtaking in sprinting six lengths clear of the subsequent Arc winner Rheingold.

Remarkably Dahlia's story had barely begun. What a filly.

1 Enable(2017)
John Gosden
Frankie Dettori
Two years on from Enable's Irish Oaks win she is firmly established in the pantheon of racing's all-time greats, but it was pretty clear she was a very special talent when she joined the distinguished list of fillies who have completed the Epsom and Curragh double with an impressive five-and-a-half-length rout of a solid field.

Enable had won by a similar margin at Epsom, and the Irish Oaks confirmed she was a filly who had everything, as she travelled, she quickened and she stayed. Oozing class from start to finish, she looked every inch a filly who would be a match for the best colts in the business.

The rest, as they say, is history, and Enable is still rewriting it.

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