‘Moon’ can score and upstage Wembley

Thunder Moon, with Declan McDonogh on board, on the way to winning the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden at the Curragh last August. Photo: Patrick McCann/Racing Post

Marcus Armytage

May 01 2021 03:23 AM

After a hectic week over the jumps at Punchestown, attention turns firmly to the Flat at Newmarket where Aidan O’Brien, who already holds the record for the most English 2,000 Guineas winners, can be thwarted in his bid for an 11th win by his son Joseph, who saddles Thunder Moon.

This year’s 2,000 Guineas looks one of the most open in ages, but the quick ground will play to Thunder Moon’s strengths in a way that the Dewhurst, when he was third behind St Mark’s Basilica and Wembley, did not.

His sire Zoffany came as a close as any horse to beating Frankel in the St James’s Palace Stakes, but was effective over shorter and has injected plenty of speed into his son which, out of a Sadlers Wells mare, should improve for a mile and a winter on his back. He beat Wembley at The Curragh on good ground but Wembley – on jockey bookings the Ballydoyle No 1 – took four starts to break his maiden and, even at the top level, kept finding one too good.

Of the English trial winners Chindit, which landed the Greenham, might struggle on the Rowley Mile’s undulations while that will not be a problem for Godolphin’s Master of The Seas, unbeaten in three starts at Newmarket including the Craven.

Tomorrow, the Ballydoyle supremo’s Santa Barbara is set to go off an even shorter price for the Classic following the defection of Joseph’s Fillies’ Mile winner Pretty Gorgeous.

However, Jane Chaplye-Hyam’s Saffron Beach has achieved more on the track. Unbeaten in two runs as a juvenile, she looked sure to be suited by stepping up to a mile when second on her return in the Nell Gwyn, finishing behind the reopposing Sacred.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]