Posts Tagged ‘2000 guineas’

Aidan O’Brien is the king of the 2000 Guineas with four victories in the last ten years. Rock Of Gibraltar in 2002, Footstepsinthesand in 2005, George Washington in 2006 and last year’s winner Henrythenavigator have made O’Brien the man to fear in the Newmarket showpiece.

The Irish trainer’s horses are often allowed to go off at decent odds as Henrythenavigator winning at 11/1 in 2008 demonstrates. His only winner at cramped odds was 2006 incumbent George Washington at 6/4.

This year O’Brien goes to war with 5 runners, although the participation of Rip Van Winkle has been open to some debate in the last week or so. This horse looked very impressive when winning the Tyros Stakes at Leopardstown but disappointed badly in the Dewhurst and although that wouldn’t put me off on it’s own, I feel he’s being priced up very short on reputation whereas other have solid form in the book.

Of all Aidan’s entries, the one I like most is Mastercraftsman. His best performance for me came in the Group 1 Independent Waterford Wedgwood Phoenix Stakes which was on good to firm ground, the likely going for Saturday’s big race. He was a little disappointing on his last start when 4th behind Naaqoos at Longchamp at the end of last season but I’m always prepared to forgive horses from the O’Brien stable a bad run at the end of a campaign.

A number of his 2 year olds have followed this pattern but Aidan O’Brien has a knack of getting them back to 100% for the start of their 3 year old campaign and I expect Mastercraftsman to be another example of this.

It’s always nice to see one of the smaller stables get a result in the 2000 Guineas and I’d imagine something will pop up in the places at a huge price as is often the case here but I’d expect O’Brien to do it again.

Henry Cecil’s impressive juvenille Wingwalker made to two wins from two starts with victory at Sandown in the Combisafe Novice Stakes.

Lord Grimthorpe, racing manager to owner Khalid Abdullah, said: “He was a bit fresh and the pace wasn’t very fast so it was another learning curve.

“The Dewhurst will feature quite highly in our plans and it might be a possibility to give him another run first in a race at the Cambridgeshire meeting.”

Both Stan James and Skybet make Wingwalker a 16/1 chance for next year’s 2000 Guineas.