As a matter of principle, I have to oppose any young 3 year old sprinter attempting to go down the Guineas route.
I can remember Attraction stepping up to the mile but not many others. So I’m taking on the speedy Tiggy Wiggy in the Fred Darling.
Keeping it simple, I’ll back maiden winner Jellicle Ball because she’s a Gosden horse and because the clockers worked themselves into a frenzy after her one and only racecourse appearance last term (at Kempton in October).
Sadly through incompetence I’ve missed this morning’s 4/1 so will have to make do with the 7/2.
(A little needled, therefore, I’ve also had a small bet at 33/1 for the 1000 Guineas itself with Racebets.)
The first big Irish weekend is here, and for all the usual personal petty motives I’ll be hoping that Mustajeeb goes close in the Irish 2,000.
The purist on the other hand, whose motives are brilliantly unblemished, hopes to see Kingman finally fulfil his Classic destiny. And sometimes I can count myself a purist too.
Mustajeeb was trounced by War Command in last year’s Futurity, and maybe he’ll be trounced by that same horse again tomorrow.
It was his racecourse reappearance that teased the imagination when, in the Amethyst Stakes, he reeled in some decent older horses with barely a flick of the whip:
Cue the student who accounts for the run by reminding us about the progeny of Nayef and how they improve with age. One day I’ll have to check – or ask someone if they’ve checked – the truth in that statement.
It’s difficult sometimes not to be so partial about the game, and I can’t help myself when it comes to Coolmore. Their dominance in Ireland I find mundane. It’s a bit like that time in the 80s when I couldn’t stand Steve Davis until he started losing at snooker.
We all know that Aidan O’Brien’s horses need their first run, but even so! Look at what Dermot Weld – Mustajeeb’s trainer – has been up to. Winner of seven of the 11 Pattern races run in Ireland so far!
Dermot Weld – the bully of Ballybrit, who won his first Group race in 1974 for fuck’s sake. The trainer who couldn’t win the Champion Bumper for all the tea in China, and not for the want of trying. So by the time Silver Concorde finally put the record straight this year, most punters readily gave up the chance of backing a Weld horse at 16/1.
Other, better informed aficionados can judge Weld’s lifetime achievements. My admiration for him is less about the fact that he won six Irish Legers with two horses, and more about the fact that he trained the winner of the Belmont Stakes. Or that he trained the winner of the Melbourne Cup – twice!
All those Group 3s he’s already bagged this year have been won by three year olds, so Dermot Weld has a lot to look forward to in his 66th year. No doubt he’d love to win an Epsom Derby or an Arc before he calls it a day. But with just two Group 1s to his name in the last three years, the cold truth is that it’s tough enough for any Irishman these days to win anything at the highest level against the empire of Magnier.
There are seven Group 1 races in Germany: five over 12f, one over 11f – and the other (at 10f) isn’t exactly a test of speed.
No surprise, then, that their international stars tend to excel at the mile and a half trip. It’s not long ago that Danedream pronged both King George & Arc, and it was a shame that Novellist, an easy King George winner, was denied a run against Treve in last year’s Arc.
Good sprinters and milers don’t come out of Germany – do they?
Their 2,000 Guineas (the Mehl-Mulhens-Rennen), run over the Cologne mile tomorrow, is only a Group 2. Foreign raiders have won the last four and eight of the last 15.
If you look at those eight winners (Pacino, Dupont, Brunel, Royal Power, Frozen Power, Excelebration, Caspar Netscher, Peace At Last) only Excelebration was a proper Group 1 horse. He won this in 2011 by 7 lengths at what must have been gift-wrapped odds of 2/1. But generally, you’ve been able to come here and win this with a Listed horse.
Perhaps that’s why the German-trained LUCKY LION isn’t shorter than 17/10 for tomorrow’s event. This is a virtual re-run of the Dr Busch-Memorial, and that’s a race worth watching for the ease with which Lucky Lion came home:
Maybe he’s good, or maybe he’s just a good bit better than a sorry crop. We’ll know more after tomorrow.
There are only two raiders this year:
(1) Michael Appleby’s Cordite, a maiden winner beaten out of sight in this season’s Listed Feilden Stakes; and
(2) the more intriguing Wilshire Boulevard, who’s moved from the powerhouse of Coolmore to the Bettina Wilson barn in Denmark. Kept busy as a juvenile, he won the Group 3 Anglesey Stakes and wasn’t too far behind Karakontie in the Group 1 Jean-Luc Lagardere. It’s tricky to know with any certainty what he’ll produce tomorrow (he didn’t win his prep for this), but heavy supporters of Lucky Lion may consider taking a little insurance at 9/1.
Hopefully a few more bookies will take a passing interest in the race and price it up before the off.
The Bacchy Races 