AS I mentioned last week, I’m not a believer in betting heavily just because of the prestige of a race and while the shape of the National Hunt season means that the importance of races tends to match up with the build-up to those races, meaning it’s easier to have a strong opinion based on form on such contests – that isn’t the case for the flat.

Most of the biggest events, come when the information on those competing in said events is largely incomplete, and in the case of the first two classics of the season, when the most crucial information comes from a previous season, and before the major contenders are fully mature.

John Gosden is often quoted as calling the 2000 Guineas the “last two-year-old race of the season”, and that gives an indication of the fractured nature of the three-year-old form book, where most strong opinions are based either on reputation or on the achievements of immature youngsters who will have progressed at differing rates since their juvenile exploits were recorded.

The Dewhurst, a more informative trial than any of the established spring events before Newmarket in May, explains why City Of Troy was such an overwhelming favourite, whereas Notable Speech, who had the benefit of three runs in the current campaign, was very weak in the market on Saturday.

Wise after

That’s not to be wise after the event, but just to point out that the winner was unpopular with punters on the day on the basis that he was following an unproven path.

In days of yore, the idea of three public runs before the 2000 Guineas was impossible, but the advent of all-weather racing means that it’s possible to give a thorough grounding to a horse with Notable Speech’s profile, namely a brilliant and fairly precocious miler, but one who was too weak to race in the summer/autumn of his first season in training.

Old habits die hard, of course, and the established pattern of races will still tend to provide a juvenile champion who will, as often as not, go into winter quarters as favourite for the first classic of the season, but the chance of another Notable Speech rocking up unannounced in next year’s Guineas has now increased.

If Charlie Appleby can do it, then Godolphin will back him to do it again, and if Godolphin shift their methods to increase the chance of a similar event happening in the future, then other big operations will think about a similar shift.

Preparation

Notable Speech was the first horse to win the 2000 Guineas on turf debut, or at least after a purely all-weather preparation, but Ghanaati won the 1000 Guineas in 2009 after two previous runs at Kempton, and her achievements might have passed unnoticed because we don’t view the fillies’ classic in the same way that we do the ‘2000’.

Fillies tend to be less predictable than colts and it has traditionally been much harder to find an outstanding candidate for the 1000 Guineas and the Oaks in the two-year-old formbook.

As such, there is less focus on preparing a 1000 Guineas prospect in a traditional manner. The best trainers know that fillies are less malleable than colts and that bringing them to a peak in May means being more adaptable about when and where to run them.

It’s the norm that the very best three-year-old fillies have been beaten more than once as juveniles, and it’s not at all unusual for them to start out after the turf season has ended. Ghanaati, as mentioned, won the Guineas after two runs at Kempton, and Enable started out on a cold evening at Newcastle; such a preparation is no longer seen as unusual, with Elmalka the latest to begin her career in the all-weather season with a debut win at unfashionable Southwell last November.

The question is whether a shift in thinking regarding preparing top-class fillies, which has been happening over the last two decades, is preceding a similar change with the colts, and I suspect that it won’t be quite as straightforward as that, particularly with such a strong focus on producing champions at two, but I feel the ground is shifting slightly and a new pattern, focusing on racing in that traditionally quiet winter window, is slowly emerging.

IT’S important to be aware that the Guineas marks the beginning of the flat season at the highest level and that we are yet to reach the beginning of the summer proper, so there are a lot of horses still short of their physical peak. I was intrigued to hear Henry Candy declare with certainty that his star sprinter Twilight Calls would definitely be better for a run when lining up for the Palace House Stakes last Saturday.

That was obvious from the way he lost his pitch in the middle of the contest, but he finished best of all in a messy race to be beaten just over half a length in fourth, arguably not helped by being switched towards the far side of the group to make that challenge.

Candy suggested that Twilight Calls was hard to train last season but that he was happier with the horse physically this spring, and while the Palace House was a bit of a hotch-potch of a race, his comeback was full of promise with that late rattle coming as the field was quickening, not slowing, which adds to the appeal of the run.

He was a little underwhelming last year given his talent, but it’s not at all unusual for sprinters to be at their best at the age of six, as he is, and in a fairly thin division, I expect him to make amends for his winless campaign last year.

Everyone could see that both the second and fourth in Sunday’s 1000 Guineas were compromised by the way they were positioned in that race and both will be heavily backed to make amends at the top level next time.

Strong fillies

Rather than labour that point, I’ll focus on another strong fillies’ race that made less of a splash on social media. The Pretty Polly is just a listed race these days, but its position in the calendar always makes it interesting, and the latest renewal looked strong on paper and even more so in the running, where the beautifully bred Friendly Soul beat the exciting Kalpana in a race they dominated completely.

The front pair pulled well clear in the Pretty Polly and both look up to winning at the highest level, with John Gosden quick to nominate the Prix de Diane as a more suitable target for Friendly Soul than the Oaks.