Classics To Chew Over

Larkspur looks at the prime three-year-old action.

QIPCO GUINEAS FESTIVAL REVIEW

At the five-day declaration stage we were set for the smallest 2,000 Guineas field in a generation as only 12 colts had stood their ground. The field would be further reduced to ten runners on the big day. Missing were both Best Of Days and Thunder Snow from my ante-post selections.

The former was entered in both the Dante and the Derby, while the latter was heading for the Kentucky Derby and the run for the roses as expected. Unfortunately, the Godolphin colt put in one of the most bizarre performances you will see at Churchill Downs when he exited the stalls and did a remarkable impression of a bucking bronco mule, jockey Christophe Soumillon having to pull him up immediately. There would be no ‘Godolphin blue moon shining over Kentucky’ dream for another year.

That just left us with Al Wukair and Andre Fabre’s stable was in a rich vein of form, leading his trainer to confidently predict that his colt would be in the first three but concerned that he did not have Group 1 winning form.

If the 27 times French champion trainer had read Andy Newton’s column in the last month’s Racing Ahead he would have seen the ‘standout trends’ were that a horse had to have won over 7 furlongs and won a Group race – not necessarily a Group 1 event. Al Wukair, who had run twice as a juvenile, had opened his threeyear-old campaign with a win in the Group 3 Prix Djebel over 7f at Maisons Laffitte on 10 April. He scored 23 points according to Racing Ahead and was ticking the all the right boxes.