For reader unfamiliar with the name, Art Power is a six-year-old gelding owned by King Power Racing and trained by Tim Easterby in Great Habton, North Yorkshire. A son of Dark Angel, a leading sire of sprinters, Art Power has been campaigned exclusively over five and six furlongs and, all told, has won eight of his 27 races since making his debut at Newcastle in September, 2019.
On British soil, Art Power has reserved his best form for Ascot, where he was an impressive winner of the Palace Of Holyroodhouse Handicap in June, 2020, and not beaten far in either the Group 1 British Champion Sprint Stakes the following October or the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes the following summer. However, while the popular grey has amassed around £470,000 in prize money in Britain, a little over half that amount has come from placed, rather than winning, efforts and he has yet to win a Listed or Pattern race.
On the opposite side of the Irish Sea, though, Art Power has proved nothing short of a revelation. He made his Irish debut, as a three-year-old, in the Group 3 Lacken Stakes, over six furlongs, at Naas in July, 2020, justifying odds-on favouritism by winning comfortably under hands and heels riding. Eight defeats later, including six at Group 1 level, Art Power returned to Ireland for the Group 3 Renaissance Stakes, again over six furlongs, at the Curragh in September, 2021; again he won easily, at odds-on. He won the same race, in similar fashion, in 2022 and in 2023, so far, has made two more successful visits to the Co. Kildare venue, winning the Group 2 Greenland Stakes,over six furlongs, and the Group 2 Sapphire Stakes, over five, by wide margins to take his record in the Emerald Isle to 5-5.
Reflecting on his most recent victory, winning jockey David Allan said of Art Power, ‘He just livens up coming here and down at the start I could feel him coming to life.’