RACING IS BACK IN NINE DAYS’ TIME AS GERMANY PIPS THE FRENCH: A sight for sore eyes! Racing is on the way back. As forecast in this column, the Germans return a week ahead of the French, who have a revised calendar, with Classic trials (May 11) to launch their delayed season. Outside raiders will be allowed from Guineas day on June 1. England and Ireland have no published timetable at this stage.
🗓️ May 4: German racing reopens at Dortmund
🗓️ May 5, 6, 7, 8: Hanover, Mannheim and Cologne
🗓️ May 11: French racing reopens with the Prix d’Harcourt, Prix de la Grotte and Prix de Fontainebleau trials and Prix de Saint-Georges sprint at Longchamp
🗓️ June 1: French 2,000 and 1,000 Guineas, Longchamp
🗓️ June 7: Grand Steeplechase de Paris and French Champion Hurdle at Auteuil
🗓️ June 14: Prix Saint-Alary and Prix Ganay, Longchamp
🗓️ June 28: Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud
🗓️ July 5: French Derby and Oaks, Chantilly
🗓️ July 12: Prix Jean Prat, Deauville
🗓️ July 19: Prix d’Ispahan, Chantilly
🗓️ August 16: Prix Jacques Le Marois, Deauville
🗓️ August 23: Prix Morny, Prix Jean Romanet, Deauville
🗓️ September 13: Grand Prix de Paris, Longchamp
SECRETS OF WINNER FINDING: DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE BIG GUNS: The top yards can’t win them all. Even if their horses have solid Classic form, there is no guarantee that they can continue on a pedestal, as late developers come out of the pack and the scene changes from the wide open spaces of Newmarket and The Curragh to big-dipper Epsom, the very fast reaches of Royal Ascot and the hairpin bends of Goodwood.
➡️ Next week: the Guineas then and now
DARE TO DEFY MAGIC OF AIDAN O’BRIEN
Don’t be fooled. After the Guineas, start to think ‘lay’ as the early Classic winners – even those who have doubled up – face different tracks, different distances and late-developing colt and filly rivals.
Even the greatest of trainers can’t make machines of flesh-and-blood thoroughbreds, particularly when they are fillies, particularly when they must continue racing for greater and greater prominence in the hall of fame of the breeding paddocks, where millions are at stake.
LAY: Rhododendron, Aidan O’Brien, Royal Ascot, June 2018.
Rhododendron (9th of 15 at 100-30, Queen Anne Stakes): Humbled, as so many were, by Enable in the 2017 Oaks at Epsom, she dropped back in trip after that but shorter races had to go all her own way and she was never going to be suited by the superfast track at Ascot and kinky Goodwood.
She was a short price for the Queen Anne after winning the Lockinge at Newbury in the May, but early Pattern races are often misleading for two reasons.
Many horses are not race fit and have not fully come in their coats; those ‘nearly horses’ who would have no hope later on against the top brigade are got up early to try for a big pot they wouldn’t otherwise deserve.
So it was that Rhododendron, who had already had a race and was match fit, beat the seven-year-old Lightning Spear, who had won his Group races only at Goodwood and whose Pattern form otherwise was 243030032003.
Third was Lancaster Bomber, another nearly horse, who came to the race as winner only of his maiden, followed by 14 consecutive defeats.
The Press reported that the class-2 handicap winner, Accidental Agent, ‘somehow’ won the Queen Anne at 33-1, trained by Eve Johnson Houghton. The gelding never won again in 11 attempts.
LAY LINES: So many doubts here about Rhododendron: in-and-out performer, not the speed to lie up in a fast-track race; misguided view of her form; short price because of hype and the trainer’s name.
EXPECTING TOO MUCH OF THE GUINEAS
LAY: Hermosa, Aidan O’Brien, Royal Ascot, June 2019
Hermosa (2nd of 9 at even money, Coronation Stakes): Another to have pinched early-season prizes, her 1,000 Guineas double at Newmarket and The Curragh acheiving the highest hype.
But the second filly home at Newmarket had been beaten twice at Group-1 level before and had won only a Group 3; the third filly also had to step up from an early-bird start in Group 3. She would never win again.
The runner-up at the Curragh had won only two-year-old sprints and, in fact, never scored again, even when dropped back to sprint distances.
The third had won only her maiden and had to drop down out of the Pattern to score again in a fillies-only conditions race at Killarney.
LAY: Hermosa, Aidan O’Brien, Goodwood, August 2019)
Hermosa (9th of 9 at 13-8, Nassau Stakes): Past halfway in the season, and there are fresh fillies blossoming.
Hermosa never won again after her Guineas double, and was last of nine in this Nassau Stakes at Goodwood, 13-8 favourite despite her Royal Ascot defeat.
O’Brien said she was expected to relish the step up to 1m 2f, and he professed himself baffled by the poor performance. There was no apparent reason for this disappointment.
You mean apart from the harrowing defeat at Ascot (under pressure final furlong and a half) after the physical punishment of winning two Guineas; their being run on wide open tracks, whereas Goodwood is a specialist’s right-hand merry-go-round.. not to mention that step up in trip? Come on!
With the power of hindsight, there was a third (fourth?) reason for opposing Hermosa. The O’Brien stable didn’t have a single winner during the whole of Glorious Goodwood from 17 runners.
LAY LINES: Early Group races are unreliable; the Guineas come too soon. Change of trip and track type; poor trainer form as new blood comes along. It’s a cocktail of negatives that the layer loves.
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