3 minute read
Racing and Sports preview the 2000 Guineas from Newmarket.
The first classic of the season is here, the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket the start of the top flight racing season in the UK, and the 2021 edition throws up one of the mose open editions in recent memory.
There are no stand outs this year. There are a couple of Group One winners from last season but none that could claim to have run up to Guineas standard, or near it, on the clock, and the trials have been much more solid than spectacular.
Analysis of the Guineas in modern times tends to begin with Aidan O'Brien and the Ballydoyle runners which are - it seems all are in agreement with this nowadays - to be referred to as his battalion.
This year he runs three. Dewhurst winner St Marks Basilica skips Newmarket and leaves Wembley to represent that formline along with French G1 winner Van Gogh and Goodwood winner Battleground.
Wembley comes through the most obvious form races, placed in both the National and the Dewhurst, but the National was slow and the Dewhurst open to interpretation. Neither appeal as particularly strong races.
Van Gogh was beaten by Godolphin's One Ruler on the Dewhurst under card, and that race was slower than the Dewhurst, before winning a G1 in France where they were in it up to their knees.
Battleground makes the most appeal of the trio. He beat nothing at Ascot and Goodwood but he beat nothing very convincingly and the clock stopped quickly enough. He then ran really well from too far back in the US at the Breeders.
Click here for free form,ratings and speed maps for Newmarket tonight
Thunder Moon won the National finishing quickly off a crawl and then may well have drawn away from the ideal spot in the Dewhurst where he was sent out shorter than the two that beat him home. He's the one to take from that.
Of the trial winners, both Chindit and Master Of The Seas look nailed on to run well here but they have more of a Guineas placegetter look than a Guineas winner look. Perhaps this is the year for one like that to actually win the race that lacks a standout star, and the Racing and Sports Pricing Model, with it's love of recent form, gets a little bit warm on that pair.
Mutasaabeq won at the Craven meeting and earned a place here. The market makes him about as good a chance as any and he looks a trendy pick for those with stopwatches having put up a fairly sharp figure fresh.
Talented, absolutely, but he did win what was essentially a time trial fresh and it's one thing to do it in full flow with no competitive pressure around. It's another to step up and do it in a Guineas. Given that, he seems short enough.
So Battleground and perhaps Thunder Moon are the most appealing plays in the Guineas.
For a bet elsewhere on the card, Sir Ron Priestley is starting to wrestle favouritism away from Pyledriver in the Jockey Club Cup and that is more than reasonable in the eyes of the Racing and Sports Model.
A good recent return off a long break rated well and it can set him up to return to his best which is a match for Pyledriver. The recent runs gives him the edge and makes him a bet worth having.
Recommended Bets: Back Battleground in the 2000 Guineas. Back Sir Ron Priestley in the Jockey Club Cup.
