200 Guineas Features 11 Promising 3yo milers
This Saturday’s Grade 1 2000 Guineas at Newmarket promises to be a great one!
Eleven classy 3yo’s are set for battle for a turfy mile in a race that could prove to be a springboard to superstardom for any one of these, or even many of them. The purse is a cool half-million Sim bucks, the weatherman has awarded the fans at Newmarket with clear skies (for England, anyway!) and the course is rated “Firm”.
Let’s have a look at this fine field:
DRUMMER
This Monsun colt has only raced five times but has won a pair with three second-place runs. The blankpoin4 trainee is looking for his first stakes win and this is a tough place to get it. However, this guy has a load of talent and could very well be one to watch for in the future no matter how things go here. The scratch-bred colt goes off at 14/1.
GALICIO
This colt, trained by bestobene2, is also 2-for-5 in his career, but the three losses were all very competitive efforts in Graded stakes races. Son of Galileo goes off at 10/1 and could be a “live” longshot. He’s improving with every start and could fire big.
HYPERSTORM
This guy seems to have really good days and really bad days and not too many in the middle. His last, the Grade 1 Japanese 200 Guineas, was one of his bad days. The muninn240-trained Bernardini colt is capable of anything, and gets 9/1 odds here.
SALTPANS
Hmm… Two Graded wins at the distance, ranked #10 in the division, and gets 8/1 odds. The Malibu Moon colt has a total of four stakes wins for lopickles and a 28-percent jock aboard. He did appear to regress last time, though the distance was a furlong further.
SNATCH AWAY
Everything seemed to be rolling along really nicely for this super26 trainee, but he faded in the stretch in the Grade 2 Golden Rose, then his last was a total disaster in the Grade 3 Irish 2000 Guineas Trial. Still, the Montjeu colt comes right back just four weeks later and gets 22/1 odds. I’ve seen horses come right big and run huge after an awful race, and I’ve seen ’em back it up with another bad one…
BITTER LIME
This Tanino Gimlet colt goes off at 5/1 for bsben5, and is ranked #17 in the division due to two Graded wins and a 2nd. His loss at short odds last out may have been better-than-looked because the winner ran a monster race in his stakes debut and is favored in another allowance elsewhere today.
BRISTOL BARON
Colt by Pivotal has done almost nothing wrong in his 6-race career and could be any kind of good. The bristolred trainee ran off with the Grade 3 Irish 2000 Guineas Trial last time out; a repeat of that performance will be very tough to deal with. A barely adequate rider has taken the mount on this impressive 6/1 shot; might hurt his chances.
FUTURISTIC DESIGN
Goes off at 5/1 after running 3rd behind today’s favorite in the Grade 2 South African Classic last time out. Trained by mtklaz09, he broke his maiden on this track last year. This Street Cry colt’s running style indicates a future in longer races to this observer…
DUBAI NAVIGATOR
This guy has had an interesting career thus far. The Henrythenavigator colt won half of his first six, all on the turf. This included the Grade 2 Bedford Stakes in a thrilling out-of-the-clouds finish that just managed to catch GALICIO in the last jump. After he bombed badly in the Grade 1 BB Juvy Turf, blankpoin7 decided to try his colt on the dirt where he ran almost the same race in the Grade 3 Sam’s Town Delta Jackpot. However, he bombed out in three successive dirt tries and is back to try his hand on the grass. Gets 10/1 odds and a solid rider… Who knows?
TWO FOR FIFTY
This Pentire colt is another turf-to-dirt-and-back-to-turf runner. Trained by bmoney, his last two on the grass are promising, but he tries much tougher here in his Graded debut. The CPU sets his price at 8/1; his rider is 2 of 47 this year. A lot of questions to answer for this one…
ADVENTURES
This Duke Of Marmalade colt is the 4/1 favorite after his spectacular Grade 2 South African Classic last time out. The propertyof trainee is looking for his 4th straight trip to the winner’s circle and ran well in a sprint stakes on this course last year. He was ridden in that sprint stakes by leading rider A Craig, who chose to ride SALTPANS in this one.
Time to try to handicap this thing…
It doesn’t look like we’ve even seen BRISTOL BARON‘s best effort yet. Speed merchant will be tested here, but my guess is that he has even more zip in reserve.
ADVENTURES should be flying in the lane, but likely will need a bit more distance to catch the fireball in the lead.
SALTPANS looks to get his game back at his preferred distance.
Be sure to tune your viewer to this one!
Good luck all!