Big Race Focus: 2,000 Guineas

Events / Jack Houghton / 01 May 2009 / Leave a Comment

Jack Houghton is unimpressed by the three co-favourites in the 2,000 Guineas betting. Read his full race breakdown here.

Anyone else feel like the 2,000 Guineas is difficult to decipher this year? Usually you have a horse or two with an exceptional performance somewhere in their back catalogue. This year however, it all looks a bit flat-chested.

Few of them have shown any consistency in the form figures they have returned, with their two-year-old careers reading more like those of my-turn-now-your-turn sprint handicappers, than potential top-flight glory machines. And the speed figures tell a similar story.

This makes it a difficult race to approach. It's far easier to be presented with an exceptional candidate, with a string of race wins in increasingly difficult races. All you need to do then is decide whether the price is value and back or lay as appropriate. Unfortunately, in this race, I couldn't say with any great confidence what the best single piece of form on offer was, let alone identify a horse likely of reproducing their best come tomorrow afternoon.

Mastercraftsman might be the one. His Phoenix win got a thumbs up on the clock from me, and also looked good to the handicap ratings brigade. But there's something that looks unreliable about that race. The O'Brien pacemaker set a furious gallop, allowing Mastercraftsman to run fast, even fractions throughout: optimal conditions for returning a big speed rating. And much of the handicapping excitement came from the presence of Art Connoisseur in second: whose high-billing likely had more to do with Ascot precocity than it did lasting top-flight ability. This, along with his later defeat in France, means I can't be taking the currently available [6.4].

And if Mastercraftsman is a shortish price, then that of Rip Van Winkle is ludicrous. He was beaten a long way in the Dewhurst when a short-priced favourite and, whilst it's easy to forgive any horse a bad performance or two, it wasn't as if he'd done much to deserve his Dewhurst billing in the first place. His victory in the Tyros stakes was visually impressive, but the pace was muddling in the extreme that day, and told us little of his ability other than he can run a fast two furlongs from a virtual standing start. Yes he's one of O'Brien's and yes, Murtagh has chosen to ride him; but we're woefully short of the evidence required to have him as short as [5.0].

Delegator also fails to excite. His Craven win looked good, but it was a weak field and the time not especially impressive. And it's hard to forget his defeat in the Dewhurst. Two horses in this field got the better of him that day and yet he is a fifth the price of both of them. There was plenty of whispering - actually, let's call it shouting - from his stable prior to the Craven to suggest they think he's a better horse as a three-year-old, but [5.2] is far too short a price to be taking until we know that with more certainty.

With three dodgy looking co-favourites, the advice is to lay all of them at a combined price of around [1.84]. In my book, that should be more like [2.4].

In terms of supporting something else in the race, the market seems to be focusing on the immeasurable - trainer records and stable chat - and ignoring the key piece of form informing this race: last year's Dewhurst.

Six of this 2,000 Guineas' field ran in that race. It was run in a fast time and looks like the most reliable piece of two-year-old form on offer. And yet Lord Shanakill and Finjaan, second and third in the Dewhurst respectively, are available at [24.0] and [34.0].

They're not from the usual stables associated with Guineas glory, and they don't possess a string of ones next to their names, but they've produced the best form on offer here. And whilst that form might not be exceptional, at such enormous prices they have to be supported.