OK, WHAT DOES AIDAN HAVE IN HIS STABLE?

Ian Heitman runs through the fancied runners for the month’s big races

- Ian Heitman

The obvious starting point when looking ahead to the first two Classics of the Flat season, the 2000 Guineas and 1000 Guineas, is to look at the entries from Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle stable as he has trained ten 2,000 Guineas winners and six 1,000 Guineas winners and, not surprisingly, there are plenty of entries from the yard in both races.

2,000 Guineas

At the time of writing there were 72 horses entered in the 2,000 Guineas, O’Brien having 12 including three of the top four in the ante-post market. is currently the market leader and has reportedly had a good winter and developed into a strong three-year-old. He won two of his four starts last year including the Group 2 Vintage Stakes at Goodwood before faring best of the six European runners in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, finishing well to be second to Fire At Will who has been beaten twice since. Battleground would be Aida O’Brien’s third 2000 Guineas winner who failed to win a Group 1 race at two, his last five winners in the race were all successful at the highest level as juveniles.

St Mark’s Basilica had three runs in Group 1 company last year, winning the last one, the Dewhurst Stakes over 7f at Newmarket in October when he beat stable companion Wembley by three quarters of length, the pair a length and three quarters in front of Thunder Moon. The Dewhurst win saw St Mark’s Basilica crowned Champion European Two-Year-Old for 2020 with a rating of 120, 2lb in front of Supremacy (winner of the Group 1 Middle Park and will be targeted at the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot) and Wembley. O’Brien has twice completed the Dewhurst/2,000 Guineas double, with Rock Of Gibraltar in 2001/2 and more recently in 2016/17 with Churchill who was also the Champion Two-YearOld of his year.