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1,000 Guineas Betting: Godolphin runner may be underrated as rain threatens to scupper leading pair

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Ian Dean on the fillies' Classic - Natagora and Infallible top the odds but there may be some value lower down the betting...

Due to their position in the calendar, the two Guineas enjoy a build-up like no other Flat race in terms of ante-post betting. The layers have had the better of the exchanges in the 1,000 market, with leading fancies Listen, Proviso, Sense of Joy and Zarkava all failing to make the gig, either through injury or Gallic indifference.

Happily, the trials have shown others were waiting in the wings, whilst one keen to make the trip across the Channel is Pascal Bary's Natagora, who returns to the scene of her Cheveley Park win last October.

Natagora looked fleet of foot when beating 13 rivals on that occasion, crowning a juvenile campaign confined to sprint distances, but she has already taken a seventh furlong in her stride in a convincing return at Maisons-Laffitte to partly allay stamina doubts.

Natagora is marginally the form choice, with a couple of pounds in hand of her field according to Timeform, and she is currently vying for favouritism on Betfair with recent Nell Gwyn Stakes winner Infallible, the pair trading at [4.8] and [4.9] respectively.

Infallible gained many admirers when barely out of second gear the other day, and while her trainer John Gosden has came up short with a couple of Nell Gwyn winners in the past (Valentine Waltz third in '99 and Karen's Caper fourth in '05), the feeling is his latest is a lady of some quality.

Interestingly, though, the market leaders are amongst those most likely to become uneasy if the rain arrives, Infallible's relatively speedy pedigree (by Pivotal out of a Cadeaux Genereux mare) giving room to doubt her wanting a slog of any sort, much like Natagora.

It's a different tune with Muthabara, two of her three wins having come in the mud. Furthermore, John Dunlop's filly needed most of the seven furlongs at Newbury recently to stamp her authority and it's not hard to envisage her doing her best work late again. Similarly, you don't have to be Doris Stokes to predict her current price of [6.4] shortening if testing conditions prevail.

Muthabara had the grapevine rustling after a racecourse gallop at Goodwood prior to that reappearance, and another for whom the whispers have been audible this spring is James Fanshawe's similarly unbeaten Spacious.

A daughter of the exciting young stallion Nayef, Spacious hasn't had a chance to substantiate the gossip this term, and in truth her May Hill win on the second of two juvenile starts has more holes in it than St Andrews. That said, she gained plenty of marks for artistic impression that day, and a recent drift out to [8.4] probably reflects only her inactivity while others have put their case forward.

Aidan O'Brien is numerically strong as always, with four still holding the entry, and it remains far from clear whether Rockfel Stakes winner Kitty Matcham (currently backable at [17.0]) or Savethisdanceforme ([16.0]) represents Ballydoyle's best hope. The latter's reappearance second in a Group 3 at the Curragh shouldn't be underestimated, and there's likely to be some realignment in the market when jockey arrangements are unveiled.

Fellow Irishman Jim Bolger is double-handed, as are Mick Channon and Barry Hills, but they will also go empty handed if the betting is any guide, Channon's Newbury flop Nahoodh shortest of the bunch at [38.0].

That's around the same price as Tom Dascombe's Max One Two Three, and it's a measure of the regard the young trainer is already held in that this unfashionably-bred filly without a recent outing to her name hasn't been ignored to a rather greater extent.

One who may have been overlooked, though, is Saeed Bin Suroor's Laureldean Gale, the sole Godolphin representative. Laureldean Gale was sent off 6/5 favourite on the Pari-mutuel when last seen in the Prix Marcel Boussac at Longchamp on Arc day, a good deal shorter than her odds in the high-20s for this Sunday's race.

Laureldean Gale didn't give her running in the Boussac, trailing in eighth, and it subsequently emerged she had left her race behind when boiling over in the preliminaries.

The necessity of a parade before the Guineas will have connections on tenterhooks, but it shouldn't be neglected that her earlier close second to Proviso in the Group 3 Prix du Calvados at Deauville (Lady Deauville six lengths adrift in third) figures behind only Natagora's Cheveley Park in form achieved by this field so far.