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Guineas Betting: Don't put too much importance in Craven or Greenham results

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Only a thrashing of the opposition signals a potential 2,000 Guineas champ, says Simon Rowlands

There was a thought-provoking piece in the Racing Post recently by Mark Blackman, dealing with the influence of the trials on the 2,000 Guineas in recent years. In summary, it has not been substantial, with horses reappearing having outperformed those that had a trial race to a marked degree.

This is something to bear in mind over the next few days, during which there is a spate of trials, including the Craven Stakes at Newmarket on Thursday and the Greenham Stakes at Newbury on Saturday.

In the normal run of things, a Craven winner or a Greenham winner achieves form some way off that of a standard 2,000 Guineas winner, a point that can be illustrated by the Racing Post's own ratings (RPRs). The average RPR of both Craven and Greenham winners in the last five years has been 114.0, while the average RPR of the 2000 Guineas winner has been 122.8, a difference of about 3.5 lengths.

The one good trial winner in that period - Haafhd - won the Craven in 2004 by the notably wide margin of 5 lengths, with the rest of his rivals strung out behind, and went on to land the colts' classic a few weeks later.

Average ratings for the principals, adjusted for field size, margins between horses, time of race and so on, underpin the form of handicapping that is known as "standardisation", and it is a type of analysis that is particularly well suited to classics and classic trials. There are articles on www.timeform.com (under the heading "About Timeform") for those who want to find out more about this subject.

The long and short of it in this context is that anything winning the Craven or the Greenham is likely to have to beat most or all of its rivals handsomely to measure up to the sort of standard required to win the 2,000 Guineas a few weeks later.

As one who backed Raven's Pass ante-post for the May 3rd contest, I am hoping he does just that in the Craven. But experience suggests that the market may over-react if he does and that laying off will be an attractive option. He can be backed at [6.6] and laid at [6.8] on Betfair at present.

The picture with the fillies' trials is slightly better over the years, though it should be noted that only two of the last seven 1,000 Guineas winners had run previously that season. The average RPR of the last five 1,000 Guineas winners has been 116.6, whereas that for the Nell Gwyn winner is 102.8 and that for the Fred Darling winner is 102.4. That's a shortfall in the region of five lengths.

While I anticipate being unimpressed with what the Nell Gwyn and the Fred Darling throws up (though I will keep an open mind), I do think that trials will be influential in the outcome of this year's first fillies' classic, for we have had a couple of significant ones already.

Firstly, Savethisdanceforme very nearly won the Group 3 Park Express Stakes at the Curragh in March, despite carrying 2 lb overweight and being given anything but a hard time until Marjalina swooped late in the day. That she is nearly good enough to win an average Guineas is clear not only from this result but from her nine-length romp in a Listed race on the course as a two-year-old. Odds of [21.0] on Betfair are simply too big.

Even more taking, to my mind, was the win of Natagora in the Prix Imprudence at Maisons-Laffitte on Monday. Natagora had already achieved a Guineas-winning level at two years by landing the Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket (RPR 117), but I was of the opinion at the time that she would prove to be a sprinter, pure and simple.

Her Imprudence victory was not so good on paper as was her Cheveley Park success, but it came pretty easily and at seven furlongs on heavy going, and it showed that this year's Natagora settles much better than was sometimes the case last year. She now looks likely to stay an extra furlong in the 1,000 Guineas, especially as ground conditions are most unlikely to be as testing as the other day.

I expect her to start favourite on May 4th at odds shorter than the [6.6] currently available on Betfair and have backed both her and Savethisdanceforme for the race.