I suppose, given the income and the opportunity to indulge, you could eventually tire of even Meursault, Mauritius and Mrs Oakley’s sublime chicken pudding. Guiltily, because racing means nothing if it is not a celebration of the best, I notice a fleeting thought going through my mind as I slalom through Swinley Bottom and approach Newmarket for the first of the season’s Flat racing Classics: ‘Please can somebody other than Aidan O’Brien win the 2,000 Guineas this year.’
Before this year’s race, the genius who prepares the horses for John Magnier’s Coolmore operation at Ballydoyle Stables in Co. Tipperary had won the race a record eight times, and sure enough Saxon Warrior, whose softly spoken trainer described him as ‘an absolute monster’ on Saturday, won the race for a record ninth time. Human instinct being what it is (and Aidan himself being away at the Kentucky Derby), immediately after the race there were as many of us clustered around the connections of the second horse home, Tip Two Win, as there were around the Coolmore team.
The 50–1 outsider, a plucky little grey jeep to Saxon Warrior’s Sherman tank, had run a brave race to pick up for his owner Anne Cowley the second prize of £107,500, more than Lambourn trainer Roger Teal’s 25-strong team won between them last season. Efforts like theirs, which ensure that the dream stays alive for many smaller-scale owners and trainers, are vital to keep racing’s show on the road. The likeable trainer, associated with the successful globetrotter Running Stag in his days as assistant to Philip Mitchell in Epsom, had gone for the Guineas after Tip Two Win had won twice in Qatar over the winter. He rightly revelled in their achievement saying: ‘I didn’t pitch him in here because we wanted a day out.
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