Changing seasons better than Racing For Change
It would be enough to give the great and the good of Racing For Change an attack of the vapours.
It may seem like mayhem to the control freaks but this week offers the most important Flat fixtures of the nascent turf season, that was in hibernation the day after it took its first faltering steps, while its winter sibling moves towards its conclusion.
One aspect of the Racing For Change-conceived “premier” Flat season would be a starting point of the Guineas meeting next month. The problem with that would be to dismiss the Classic trials at Newmarket and Newbury this week which are the first notable meetings after the opening-day Lincoln fixture at Doncaster last month.
The days when most colts and fillies who were being aimed at the Guineas would be expected to turn out at either the Craven or Greenham meetings may have ended - Godolphin’s early-season runners saw the gallops at Newmarket for the first time on Monday – but there are still Classic clues on offer.
Tomorrow’s first day of the Craven meeting opens with 1000 Guineas aspirants Music Show and Safina running in the Nell Gwyn Stakes and Timepiece, the ante-post favourite for the Oaks, turning out for the Feilden Stakes.
The filly is also one of four entries that her trainer, Henry Cecil, has for the 1000 Guineas and he said on his website: “I’m not sure whether we have a 1000 Guineas contender yet. We have several entries but will learn more during this week. Timepiece may need further than a mile but Newmarket will tell us more. She should run well and I don’t want to run her at a shorter distance first time out.”
Cecil will be attempting to win the 1000 Guineas for a seventh time and Richard Hannon will know more about his chances of adding a fourth victory in the 2000 Guineas – following on from Mon Fils (1973), Don't Forget Me (1987) and Tirol (1990) – when Canford Cliffs runs in the Greenham Stakes at Newbury on Saturday.
Hannon believed that Canford Cliffs is in the same class as those colts after he won the Coventry Stakes by six lengths at Royal Ascot last year and still thinks that he could turn around the form with Arcano, who beat him by a half-length in the Prix Morny at Deauville in August.
“He’s been off since Deauville last August, so will obviously improve for the run, but after such a long absence it would not be ideal going for the Guineas without a dress-rehearsal, and Newbury, being just down the road, fits the bill perfectly,” Hannon said. “He has filled out since last year and strengthened, and we are very pleased with him.”
Hannon also plans to run d**k Turpin, winner of the Richmond Stakes at Goodwood last season, in the Greenham. “In a perfect world, we would keep him apart from Canford Cliffs,” Hannon explained. “But both are Group Two winners and would consequently incur a 3lb penalty for the Craven at Newmarket on Thursday, so we have no option but to run both horses at Newbury.”
The Hannon pair were among 10 entries for the Greenham along with Arcano, although there has been no final decision over whether he will run.
The decision by Paul Nicholls to scratch Denman was at the forefront of a mass defection from Saturday’s Scottish National at Ayr that had a dramatic effect on the handicap. The prospect had been for only three other horses to be running from their proper weights in the handicap but now all except one of the top 13 in the weights were taken out at the confirmation stage.
This has left Killyglen, runner-up in the Grimthorpe Chase at Doncaster last month, suddenly finding himself elevated from the basement to the penthouse, potentially heading the runners field for race on 11st 12lb instead of his original weight of 9st 11lb after the weights rose 29lb.
That is assuming he makes the race. While Nicholls decided to remove Denman from the race on the grounds that he thought that the ground at Ayr would be too fast for the horse, Lucinda Russell had to call time on the plan to run Silver By Nature in the race after the horse injured a leg at the weekend.
Silver By Nature chipped a bone in a knee, scuppering the chance for Russell to become the first Scottish-based trainer to win her home National since Cockle Strand won in 1982.
That is one aspect of racing that cannot be changed; bad luck.
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