Air force set to fly in guineas
Jonathan Powell assesses the Classic line-up
Aseries of trials on boggy ground in England and Ireland in the past month seem to have further reinforced the stranglehold which Tipperary trainer Aidan O’Brien holds on this year’s Classics.
So testing was the going in some races that if the horses had been digging any deeper they would have been tunneling.
Meanwhile, in the calmer waters at Ballydoyle, O’Brien has been quietly putting the finishing touches to the preparation of Air Force Blue and Minding whose prices have continued to contract for the 2,000 Guineas and 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket.
The same trainer is also responsible for the favourites in both the Derby and Oaks and though you would be hard pressed to name at this stage a runner for the the final Classic, the St Leger, in September at Doncaster, the chances are that O’Brien’s candidates will be at the head of the market on the day too.
For some months now he has been waxing lyrical about Air Force Blue whose brilliance at home has ensured he is the stable’s only representative in the 2,000 Guineas on April 30.
The colt that set his trainer’s heart racing on several occasions last year ended a superb first campaign by romp- ing to victory in the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket in October. He improved with every race through the season before emerging as the European Champion two-year-old with a rating of 124.
The confidence in Air Force Blue ahead of his assignment in the Dewhurst was overwhelming. It came the day after the jaunty success of his stable companion Minding in the Fillies Mile had left his jockey Ryan Moore in raptures.
Aware of Air Force Blue’s formidable reputation, heavyweight punters who started piling in at all odds from 13-8 twenty four hours before the race ensured that he was sent off at 4-6 before surging clear of a quality field in the closing stages in less time than it takes to tell.
Cue a startling admission from O’Brien which laid bare his hopes and dreams for Air Force Blue.
He related: “When Ryan came in from winning on Minding he said he’d never ridden anything like her. I said to him ‘wait until this one tomorrow’.
“The reality is that the filly would lead Air Force Blue to about halfway and then he would blow her away – that is how good he is.
“In February he was still an unfurnished baby, yet was still head and shoulders above everything else. When he was doing that at that time of year in very soft ground, he looked exceptional but they have to do it on the course. You have to see them do it.
“Air Force Blue is something we have not had before. I’d say there is no doubt he
is the best two-year-old we have ever had. The size of him, the scope of him, the way he travels, and when you let him go he delivers.
“We are always looking for the special one and year after year we’ve been lucky to have some great horses. But when a horse comes along like him...”
You could almost reach out and touch the pride in O’Brien’s face as he spoke. And those who follow this fascinating sport will recall similar sentiments expressed by the trainer about Camelot, Australia and one or two more truly exceptional racehorses that he has handled with such a masterly touch.
Cynics might suggest that he speaks with part of his mind on their future at stud as if he is already promoting their claims as stallions.But to spend time in O’Brien’s company is to appreciate that when he gets carried away in this manner it is by his enthusiasm and excitement for what the thoroughbred can achieve and noone in the past twenty years has had so many outstanding colts through his hands.
The Dewhurst has already unearthed eleven individual Classic winners this century.Yet before we get totally carried away by the persuasive testimony of Aidan O’Brien it is surely relevant to recall that Air Force Blue was put in his place by the more speedily bred Buratino in the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot over six furlongs, though the form was quickly reversed when the pair met again in the Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh early in August.
A late foal born on May 2, Air Force Blue, by War Front, has an all-American pedigree which will appeal to breeders when he eventually leaves Ballydoyle for a sultan’s life at nearby Coolmore.
That is all in the future. For the moment O’Brien is clearly relishing every minute he spends with the colt with the ground devouring stride.
Ask the question and the trainer immediately responds: “Air For Blue is a beautiful, rangy, scopey horse and you’d be thinking he can only mature. To get stock like that in the yard is great for us and while my son Joseph has always said he had a lot of pace, you would not say for sure he could not go out to a mile and a quarter if we wanted him to.
“He has a good mind, he’s relaxed. A lot of the team have put in a great deal of working to make it happen for him. When he ran at the Curragh last year we were very worried about the ease in the ground but we wanted to see how he coped with it with a view to his campaign this year.
“I’d say Air Force Blue will be at his best
in the summer this year in terms of the ground. He is very quick and incredibly exciting. It is a privilege to be involved with a horse like him.”
The substance of the form backs up the trainer’s confidence in Air Force Blue yet for most punters the colt’s miserly odds will leave them searching for each way alternatives on Guineas day at Newmarket.
In truth it is hard to nominate serious dangers to the odds-on favourite. If there is to be an upset perhaps it will be caused by Buratino, who worked the house down in a stylish gallop before racing at Newmarket. His trainer Mark Johnston knows just what it takes to win a Guineas as he was successful in the race with Mister Baileys.
There are slight doubts about Buratino staying a mile as he is by the stallion Exceed And Excel, but his breeding on his dam’s side offers hope that he will get the trip and Johnston could not be happier with the condition of his colt ahead of his date with destiny in the Guineas.At 16-1 or 20-1 Buratino looks the solid each way option.
Mark Johnston also trains the smart grey filly Lumiere who appears to be the biggest danger to Minding in the 1,000 Guineas a day later.
I have been a big fan of Lumiere since her sparkling winning debut at Newmarket last July. Her start was efficient, her pace undeniable and long before the end she was running in a race of her own. Johnston’s high regard for Lumiere was evident after she had concluded a splendid first season by winning the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket in October.
As he waited to greet her he admitted, “I haven’t been as nervous about a race for a long time because I’ve thought she’s the best horse I’ve had for a long, long time.
“Shamardal and Attraction are horses of a lifetime so you can’t really expect to find another one. I thought Lumiere was probably the best filly in the race, but I wasn’t sure she had either the experience or that she was in the condition for it as she was one of only four out of two hundred of mine to have gone in their coats.”
Last season Lumiere was a bit too impetuous through her races for her own good, running with the choke fully out.
The evidence of her homework this spring, and from gallops at Haydock and then Newmarket suggests that she is far more settled now which has to be good news for her supporters.
Johnson reflects, “We always thought there was no shortage of stamina but we also knew she was very fast and has a tremendous cruising speed. In fact her jockey William Buick said after York last year that she was a proper six furlong horse.
“But I said then I was sure she would stay and told him to ride her with confidence in the Cheveley Park and that’s what he did. She was hard pressed going into the final furlong but was pulling away in the last fifty yards.”
Buick describes sitting on Lumiere as like riding a coiled spring. “Last year she was very exuberant and wanted to do everything very quick but she saved a bit for the end. She is high class and is much more relaxed now.”
Johnston, who started training with a handful of horses in Lincolnshire, is a man who continues to push back the bounderies. Bright, articulate and forthright in his views, Johnston qualified and practised as a vet before turning to racing, and more recently learned to fly so that he reduce the countless hours wasted on the roads to distant race meetings.
He trains upwards of two hundred winners each season from his base high on the Yorkshire Moors in Middleham where early morning work watchers are in danger of frostbite in the first weeks of the flat season.
Johnston has provided a number of exceptional horses for Godolphin over the years.In the past Buratino and Lumiere would almost certainly have been transferred to Godolphin’s trainers for a winter in Dubai after their two-year-old campaigns.
But a change in policy by Sheikh Mohammed and his advisers has seen both horses remain in his care which, I would suggest, has to be good news for their prospects in the Guineas.
Johnston is notably fond of Lumiere, not least because he owns her mother Screen Star and her full sister.
He concedes, “I find it hard to explain but I do feel differently about Lumiere. I’d like to think we’ve made the best of what we have had through our hands.But there is some truth in the idea that you need big horses for people to notice.
“You can’t predict or produce horses like Lumiere or Buratino.You just have to support and nourish them when they come along .”
Something has to give when Lumiere clashes with Minding on May 1. Minding sprang to the head of the market for the 1,000 Guineas after blowing away a decent field of fillies in the Fillies Mile.
Ryan Moore is not noted for extravagant statements but he could barely disguise his excitement afterwards as he reported: “I don’t think she could have been more impressive on the day.She travelled beautifully throughout, was just cantering the whole way, and as soon as I pulled her out the race was over.”
Aidan O’Brien was equally upbeat as he explained, “We knew we had a bunch of very high-class fillies and all the form is tied up together.It wasn’t a surprise in any way that Minding won.”
Several Classic trials this spring have advertised the claims of the O’Brien filly, not least the decisive success of Nathra in the Nell Gwyn Stakes, a race run in monsoon conditions at Newmarket’s Craven meeting. Nathra had previously finished four and a half lengths behind Minding in the Filllies Mile.
A return to a mile next time will probably suit Nathra but you wouldn’t blame her trainer John Gosden and jockey Frankie Dettori if they chose to duck another confrontation with Minding and sought calmer waters for her in the French 1,000 Guineas.
With Ballydoyle, another of O’Brien’s smart fillies, unlikely to be sent to Newmarket and doubts about several others in the ante-post betting for the 1,000 Guinea, the odds against Minding are set to shorten further before she locks horns with Lumiere.