I expect that discussion about this year’s 2000 Guineas is going to continue for some time, with Richard Hannon’s 40/1 Night Of Thunder turning the Greenham form around by five lengths with favourite Kingman.
I am probably going to be really unpopular with Mr Gosden as my ante-post money weighed his charge down and I also fancied Cloudscape in the Newmarket Stakes that was won by Lady Rothschild’s other runner Barley Mow, trained by Richard Hannon.
I was at Newmarket and had positioned myself at the side of the Members’ Stand looking down the track, expecting that this might be another Guineas like when Frankel won with the rest of the field only required for background.
As the runners had gone to post there was the tall gent standing near me who looked just like John Gosden. There was a good reason for that. When he stood the other side of me, I noticed that he was being shadowed by a TV cameraman. I asked him whether he was bothered by the fast ground. He confessed that he had hoped for some rain during the week but nobody can control the weather. I suggested that there appeared to be a good covering of grass and that would cushion the ground. He acknowledged that our mild winter meant that the grass was in good condition. I have to tell you that what Mr Gosden said next turned out to be highly prophetic. He indicated that he was a little bit concerned about the draw that Kingman had if the field split. Myself, I could not see why a fourteen runner field would split and I was expecting them to group in the middle behind one or more possible front runners, such as the Spanish raider. For what it is worth, Mr Gosden did not have a jig planned for the winner’s enclosure if he had been successful.
As the runners did split into two groups and I could not tell from looking straight down the track which had the lead, I looked at the two large screens to try and gauge which group to point my camera towards. The TV people focussed on Kingman’s group close home and I did the same, so I got a load of pictures of the runner-up not winning.
If the two meet at The Curragh, I think there is every prospect that Kingman will reverse the placings. As it is not a straight mile over in Ireland, they will not split into two groups there! Plus I think there is much more chance of getting good ground there and the ground seems the most likely explanation for the sudden improvement in Night Of Thunder, although I will not denigrate his victory at Newmarket as he was the best horse on the day as the race panned out.
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