Makfi wins 2000 Guineas
The talk before the race may have all been about another horse but it was Makfi who had the final word.
St Nicholas Abbey was billed as the next star of Flat racing but he fall rather flat as Maki landed a shock win in the stanjames.com 2000 Guineas at Newmarket for his young trainer, Mikel Delzangles. And the winner was definitely the one that got away from Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum.
Makfi was bred by the sheikh’s Shadwell Estates operation and sent to one of his trainers, Marcus Tregoning, but was then rejected and sent to the Tattersalls horses-in-training sales last autumn where he cost Delzangles 26,000gns, which is looking a very shrewd investment right now.
St Nicholas Abbey was the colt who could turn the Guineas into millions as part of what could have been an ambitious attempt at the Triple Crown, not achieved since Nijinsky in 1970, and the early signs were promising.
d**k Turpin and Lord Zenith disputed the early lead as the field were spread across most of the width of the track. Johnny Murtagh had St Nicholas Abbey close enough to the leaders, in about sixth, and behind him Christophe Lemaire was considering keep a watching brief on Makfi. Lemaire, unlike several French jockeys in history, has always appeared at his ease on the open spaces of the Rowley Mile.
At halfway the tempo increased but d**k Turpin was still in front as the major players tried to win the first major prize of the season. Awzaan, racing on the stands’ side, was making no impression, Elusive Pimpernel was always playing catch-up and Murtagh was showing the first signs that all was not well. Maybe it was that premature legend tag holding his horse back? Xtension and Canford Cliffs were both prominent but the eye was already being drawn to Makfi.
Lemaire had eased Makfi for a gap between d**k Turpin and Al Zir. From there it was just a matter of how far. Even a furlong out d**k Turpin, despite still holding the advantage, looked certain to be robbed of the prize as Makfi cut him down with every ground-devouring stride to win by one-and-a-quarter lengths, with Canford Cliffs and Xtension taking the minor honours.
This was a first Classic honour for Delzangles who had a thorough grounding in his profession starting with a year in Yorkshire with Jimmy Fitzgerald and then a 10-year degree course with Alain de Royer-Dupre. Clearly he must have been a keen student and so is his horse who was winning the Guineas after just two runs.
“It’s amazing – I can’t believe it,” Delzangles said. “We wanted a Dubawi so went to Tattersalls, he was a good-looking horse and we paid 26,000gns for him. We had 30,000.”
Delzangles has had only had a handful of runners in Britain. One of those was Chineur who won the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2005 and that meeting is on the agenda once more. “The French Guineas is a possibility but it’s only two weeks. I think, now that he’s proved he’s very good, we might come back to England for the St James’s Palace.
Lemaire looked like a man who had been handed the keys to a palace as he recalled how easily the race had unfolded for him. “In the early part of the race I sat just behind Johnny. I was very happy with my position and, at the three-furlong marker, I could see that Johnny was not travelling well compared to my horse. So I started thinking of winning the race and, when I had the gap, the horse kicked very well. As the good horses do, when he accelerates he just goes down a little bit, and he puts his neck down and he accelerates very strongly. He’s won with a little margin, I think.
“He doesn’t have a lot of experience and I think he can improve a little bit more.”
St Nicholas Abbey may have to improve quite a bit from his sixth place here if he is to take a hand in the Derby but his trainer, Aidan O’Brien was not about to give up on a horse who he has rated so highly just yet. “Ideally, for this horse, he’d have liked an evenly-run mile because we were using this as stepping stone from here to Epsom,” he said. “We trained him all year with Classics in mind. It would have been easy for us to go for a Derby trial but he was working so well and his times were very good at home – they were as good as all the milers that we’ve had.
“Johnny said that they just hacked to halfway and then sprinted. He started staying on again at the end. It just didn’t work out today but we’re happy with the horse.”
If O’Brien was happy, Delzangles was delighted.
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