IRISH 2,000 GUINEAS PREVIEW: MAKING EXCUSES for horses can be an expensive pastime but sometimes it pays to be charitable and especially at general 33 to 1 odds that's a policy that could pay off in today's Abu Dhabi Irish 2,000 Guineas with Viscount Nelson.
Considering bookmakers rate him only the fourth best of Aidan O’Brien’s six-strong team, and a cross-channel challenge includes the strongly-fancied pair of Canford Cliffs and Xtension, then Viscount Nelson could be dismissed as coming from too far left-field.
But it is not unknown for an O’Brien long shot to come up in the first Irish Classic of the season. Saffron Waldon was hardly an obvious candidate in 1999 and two years later Black Minnaloushe proved that forgiveness really could pay off.
On face value he had no chance and started the outsider of a Ballydoyle quartet. Yet given a trouble-free run that had been denied him in the French Guineas, Black Minnaloushe sailed through to nail his stable companion Mozart.
A similar indulgence is necessary to fancy Viscount Nelson but at the odds, he makes plenty of each-way appeal.
For one thing he is unquestionably the best bred colt in the race, being by Giant’s Causeway out of the Irish 1,000 Guineas heroine Imagine. Another factor is that he will relish the fast ground judged on his narrow Champagne Stakes defeat last year.
A subsequent start in America can be ignored as he badly missed the break.
Despite O’Brien’s very slow start to the season, Viscount Nelson ran a good second to Noll Wallop in a trial and Kieren Fallon was inclined to forgive a lacklustre effort in the Newmarket Guineas last time due to a slow start.
Today he has blinkers on for the first time to waken his ideas and Pat Smullen could just be in for an enviable spare ride.
The indicators from Ballydoyle are that Steinbeck is only just ready to start off his campaign while the other Irish hopes, Keredari and Noll Wallop, are not sure to relish the going.
In contrast the issue for Canford Cliffs looks to be the stiff Curragh mile. He looked to be struggling at the end of a stop-start mile at Newmarket so Xtension may be the best bet to extend the British record which has seen them win six of the last 10 renewals.
O’Brien has won the other four in the last decade and he may well bring his Guineas total to seven today – just not with the one obvious one. The champion trainer’s apparent number one in the Marble Hill Stakes is the course and distance winner Samuel Morse but another course and distance winning colt, owned by Michael Tabor, High Award, could be worth another chance after a surprise defeat at Cork.
O’Brien has the Phoenix Stakes winner Alfred Nobel in the Greenlands Stakes but it is seven years since a three-year-old managed to win this race and in the circumstances the hardy English veteran Markab may be a better option.
Jessica Harrington’s chances of a Curragh double don’t look impossible with Righteous Man in the first and New Magic in the last.
