Just six runners now for the opener on 1,000 Guineas day after the well-fancied Lilt was taken out this morning, and three – Esna, Brigid’s Well and Sacred Ground – have an entry in the Oaks at Epsom next month. The best piece of form coming into the race is Esna’s close fourth in the Group One Prix Marcel Boussac at Longchamp last October, but Sacred Ground ran a fine race too on her final start as a juvenile – and showed that she acts at this track – as she finished second in a well-run Listed race over a mile. Brigid’s Well also has a pedigree that suggests she will build significantly on her two-year-old form this season but the money has been for Sacred Ground so far today and I’m going with John & Thady Gosden’s filly to improve past her main market rival.
SELECTION: SACRED GROUND.
Preamble
Good afternoon from the historic Rowley Mile on Newmarket heath, where the 1,000 Guineas, the fillies’ equivalent of yesterday’s 2,000 Guineas, is due off at 3.35. Nineteen runners and riders will go to post, aiming to add their names to a roll of honour that dates back to 1814.
Precise, the winner of the Fillies’ Mile here over the Guineas trip last autumn, will set off as a warm favourite to give Aidan O’Brien an eighth win in the Classic, one short of the all-time record of nine set by Robert Robson in the early years of the race. Robson, remarkably, won all but one of the runnings between 1818 and 1827 – something of a contrast with O’Brien, who has hit a fallow spell in both Newmarket Classics since Mother Earth won the 1,000 Guineas in 2021.
Venetian Sun,in the colours of Brighton & Hove Albion chairman Tony Bloom, is also prominent in the betting, while a whole host of lightly-raced opponents have the pedigree and potential to make a race of it now that they have another winter behind them.
There is also plenty of untapped potential in the Pretty Polly Stakes, a trial for the Oaks at Epsom next month,which opens proceedings at 1.45, while Royal Ascot is the likely next stop for the winner of the Group Two Dahlia Stakes, for older fillies and mares, at 2.20
Man-of-the-moment Billy Loughnane has six booked rides on the card, including Esna in the Pretty Polly and 33-1 shot Rose Ghaiyyath in the 1,000 Guineas, and you can follow his progress and all the other news, betting moves and more at Newmarket right here on the blog as the afternoon unfolds.
