Appleby dreams of Guineas glory after Master Of The Seas win
Master Of The Seas is as short as 8-1 for the 2,000 Guineas after the Godolphin colt beat his stable companion La Barrosa three-quarters of a length in the Bet365 Craven Stakes at Newmarket yesterday.
The Craven meeting, of which yesterday’s trial is the highlight, is one of the seminal moments of the Flat season when, after a winter spent dreaming and wondering, “some of us leave with a bit more reality than we’d like to see”, as winning trainer Charlie Appleby put it.
But Appleby, who has never won the Guineas, can keep dreaming with this pair and One Ruler, the Autumn Stakes winner about whom the dogs have been barking in Newmarket this spring. Indeed, on the strength of that and the win by Master
Of The Seas, one bookmaker actually cut One Ruler to 11-2 for the first Classic.
But the trainer was not so sure and seems to think Master Of The Seas a naturally quicker individual and that it would probably be hard for jockey William Buick to get off him in favour of One Ruler. He did not exactly write off the chances of the runner-up. La Barrosa was a bit gassy early, took a lot of passing and did not, like Master Of The Seas, who had a run in Dubai earlier this spring, have the benefit of an outing.
It was the hood that proved the key to Master Of The Seas. In the National Stakes last year, he surprised the trainer by pulling too hard and not finishing his race and, even though he is not like that at home, he did the same in Dubai. Yesterday, though, he switched off well but did not have the run of the race like his stablemate, and, seeing a dead-end road up the rail, Buick switched out wider to get a run.
“I didn’t like where I was,” said
Buick. “I wanted to give him a chance to run home. I think he’s a Guineas horse. You only see the really good ones quicken into the Dip and quicken again out of it.”
Appleby said: “Master Of The Seas was the class act in the race. I was never disappointed with his run in Dubai, he was always being aimed at a European campaign. William had to go through the gears to find a bit of racing room and he went through the line strong.”
He added: “One Ruler is a bigger individual with more scope, after the Autumn Stakes we thought he was potentially a Derby horse, though his optimum will probably be 10 furlongs, but Master Of The Seas is naturally quicker. He was quite a feminine two-year-old and I wanted to get some sun on his back and change his style of training, which is why he went to Dubai.”
At Cheltenham, Brian Hughes pulled a winner back against title leader Harry Skelton, who drew a blank. Skelton leads 141-139 and both jockeys head to Ayr for seven rides apiece today.