Some rain has been falling at Newmarket in the last 24 hours but that does little to dampen the excitement for the first classic of the flat season; the Qipco 2000 Guineas. All eyes will be on Newmarket at 15:35 to see which of this year's contenders confirm themselves as an equine superstar and cement their place into the racing hall of fame. Time to analyse a few of the main contenders on the racecard, buckle up!
The hype around race favourite City Of Troy (8/11) is no surprise after his breathtaking campaign last season. Unbeaten in three starts, including a Group 1 at this track, for which he posted a blistering average speed figure that jumps right off the page.Very impressive. He has won on both good and soft ground, so he won't give a monkey's what the weather does. The same cannot be said for a few of the others.
Rosallion (13/2) is next in the market and he certainly will not be doing a rain dance in his horse box given his only defeat last year came when the ground was soft. He’s also got no experience of the undulating Newmarket course, but his trainer has a great record in this race so you can guarantee he is going to be fully tuned up for this.
Most of the runners have yet to tackle this race distance before, but that can't be said for Notable Speech (11/1). All three of his career runs have been over this one mile distance, albeit on the all weather course at Kempton. Having won all three of his races to date, there's no denying his talent, but the demands of this race will be completely different to anything he’s faced so far.
Likewise, Night Raider (20/1) only brings all weather form to the table. However this is less of a concern for him given he was last seen flying through a course workout. He seemed to handle the track really well and left a stablemate for dust! If you have a wiggle on the THM filters, you'll find there's only one runner in the field who has a 100% win record over this exact course, distance, and ground combination...Ghostwriter (16/1) for Clive Cox, interesting.
Be sure to head over to our racecards and take a look!