2012 QIPCO 2000 GUINEAS PREVIEW

Click above to watch a preview of the
2012 QIPCO 2000 Guineas with Lydia Hislop and Steve Mellish
(Image and Footage : Racing UK)

QIPCO 2000 GUINEAS (G1)
Newmarket, 5 May 2012

Bill Oppenheim
Thoroughbred Daily NewsBy about 10:30 in the morning this Saturday (US), the day of the G1 Kentucky Derby, the first Group 1 European Classic of the season, the G1 English 2000 Guineas, will have been run at Newmarket. You’d be forgiven for not having really known much about it. The European champion 2-year-old of 2011, Coolmore’s 8-5 favorite Camelot (Montjeu), hasn’t run this year. That’s not unusual, but what is unusual is that the ground in Europe has been soft for virtually the entire month of April. It’s going to dry out and warm up this week (thankfully), but when that happens you’re really guessing. Montjeu is a Derby sire, not a Guineas sire, and the G1 Racing Post Trophy, which Camelot won in his second and final start last year, is a Derby trial, not a Guineas trial. Camelot is no doubt a really good colt, but his price reflects as much a lack of knowledge or conviction about the competition as it does his actual chances of winning the race.

No other colt was trading at under 10-1 on Betfair on Tuesday morning, which shows you how little confidence there is in what might win if the favorite doesn’t. Second choice yesterday, at 10-1, was Born To Sea, the John Oxx-trained Invincible Spirit half-brother to Sea The Stars. He broke his maiden impressively in a six-furlong listed race in September, but then ran second in the G3 Killavullan Stakes to Nephrite, a Pivotal colt trained by Aidan O’Brien who flopped in his first start this year.

Five horses yesterday were bracketed between 12-1 and 14-1 on Betfair. Co-third favorites at 12-1 were: Trumpet Major (Arakan), impressive winner of the G3 Craven Stakes at Newmarket’s opening meeting a couple of weeks ago; Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Top Offer, a Dansili colt trained by Roger Charlton who won a seven-furlong maiden race in August impressively, but missed an intended warm-up in the G3 Greenham Stakes because of the soft ground; and Abtaal (Rock Hard Ten), trained by Jean-Claude Rouget for Sheikh Hamdan, and who ran second earlier this month in the G3 Prix Djebel at Maisons-Lafitte.

In fact, very unusually, the first three from the Djebel are running at Newmarket, and the Djebel winner, French Fifteen, from the first crop by the good French miler Turtle Bowl (a son of the obscure Night Shift horse Dyhim Diamond), would therefore have to qualify as pretty good value at 13-1.

Last year’s G1 Dewhurst Stakes, usually the top 2-year-old race in Europe, was one of those messy events in which the first five finished within two lengths of each other. Trumpet Major was fifth that day, but is a shorter price in the betting than the horses which were one-two, but which haven’t had a run this year. The Dewhurst second, Power (Oasis Dream), who won the G2 Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot and the G1 National Stakes in Ireland, is presumably the Coolmore second string (danger!), at around 14-1. Parish Hill, the Dewhurst winner from the first crop by Teofilo, trained, like his sire, by Jim Bolger, is at 20-1. Parish Hall, by the way, is out of a Montjeu mare, so inbred 3x3 to Sadler’s Wells!

Extract from Thoroughbred Daily News

BORN TO SEA : BORN TO RULE

Click above to watch Born To Sea winning the Blenheim Stakes (L)
(Image : V.Chandler - Footage : All The Doyles)

BORN TO RULE

If ever a horse was born into greatness, it had to be a sibling of the greatest stallion of our era, Galileo, and of arguably the best racehorse of the last decade, Sea The Stars. That horse is Born To Sea, who debuted in the very race that rocketed Brave Tin Soldier to stardom as a juvenile, the Blenheim Stakes (Listed) at 1200m at The Curragh. It wasn’t that he won it, it was the way he won it, and while his trainer John Oxx was loathe to draw comparisons with his illustrious brothers, he did say he had some big plans for the colt.

The son of Invincible Spirit (a sprinting son of Green Desert) is said to be an imposing looking individual, who ought to be better suited by longer distances. His dam, Urban Sea, was an “Arc” winner at 2400m, and both of her most illustrious progeny excelled at that distance. Of course, there’s no guarantee Born To Sea will stay any sort of a trip, but the Invincible Spirits have at least shown some versatility, the odd one (Lawman), prevailing in the French Derby at 2000m. (The French can be different, as we know, and their Derby is 2000m, not the conventional European 2400m).

Interestingly, in the same week, the only horse in history to have won a Breeder’s Cup Juvenile and a Kentucky Derby, Street Sense, celebrated some notable successes in the Keeneland salesring, no doubt on the back of what horsemen know of his progeny, and in a week in which several of his first crop put up convincing performances. With his credentials, few would be surprised to see Street Sense emerge as a cracking sire; we’ve seen a number of them at Southern Hemisphere sales, and they look the sort to find their best in their classic years. Anything that comes to pass while they’re juveniles (as they are at the moment), is a bonus. On the face of what we’ve seen so far, there’s cause for the crew at Darley America to have smiles on their dials.

We have a small syndicate of investors at Summerhill who annually raid the weanling sales in Australia, and in the context of this story, they seem to have hit the jackpot. They have a son of Street Sense who’s being aimed at the Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale, from the immediate family of Galileo, Sea The Stars and Born To Sea. That’s not the kind of pedigree you’d expect to see at a sale in this country, and it’s a rare jackpot, not only for the vendors, but for anyone among the investing public with a modicum of Street Sense.

The Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale
Sunday 6th November

*Six cheque payment scheme for qualifying buyers.

Enquiries :
Linda Norval 27 (0) 33 263 1081
or email linda@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za