QIPCO 2000 Guineas preview: David Ord on City Of Troy

They have to be. The 'Coolmore Frankel', the best two-year-old Aidan O’Brien has ever trained. There’s hype, as you’d expect, but substance to go with the style of his three unbeaten races at two.

He goes into Saturday’s Classic with a Timeform master rating of 125p. It’s high – but not spectacularly so. To put it into context eight colts this century have jumped out of the stalls at Newmarket with a higher pre-race number.

Frankel was clearly the stand-out but of the other seven, only Dawn Approach won back in 2013. And the Ballydoyle battalion have been well represented too, St Nicholas Abbey, Air Force Blue and Little Big Bear all rated marginally higher than City Of Troy heading into the race but failed to run to that mark on the first Saturday of May.

What if 125 is the ceiling of the 2024 favourite’s ability then?

Well, if he runs to that figure it would have been good enough to win 11 renewals of the Guineas in the timeframe – and match the winning performance of four other colts - while nine have run to a higher level.

Those who didn’t hit that number in winning at Newmarket included Rock Of Gibraltar, Camelot and Churchill.

Then there’s the record of O’Brien’s Dewhurst winners in the first colts’ Classic. Five have tried to complete the Group One double this millennium, Rock Of Gibraltar and Churchill succeeded, Beethoven, War Command and Air Force Blue didn’t.

There are those who feel it’s significant that City Of Troy is a single 2000 Guineas dart for his master trainer. It’s a policy he’s used three times in the Classic before, successfully with King Of Kings in 1998, less so Orpen and Roderic O’Connor, although in the latter’s defence he was in against Frankel.

But then again at the turn of the century O'Brien didn’t have the Group One-laden firepower that was to develop over the next two decades and last year there were 50 Group One races worldwide in which he only ran one.

City Of Troy is six pounds clear on Timeform's weight-adjusted ratings in Saturday's race and there's also that letter p next to his number..

It signifies a horse is open to improvement. And the exciting, tantalising, thing with this son of Justify is just how much.

Watch again the videos of the debut win at the Curragh and in the Superlative Stakes and Dewhurst on this side of the Irish Sea.

The power with which he hits the line in each race, the way he goes through them, the action that suggests quicker ground will suit him even better.

It looks a simple gameplan on Saturday. Ryan Moore will just want to get out there and get on with it. On the front end, drawing the sting from the speed horses in behind.

He won’t be 15 lengths clear at the bushes and his calculator-busting performances might be saved for when he goes out in trip at the likes of Epsom and the Curragh, but this will be a Classic game of catch me if you can.

The timeform analyst wrote in their report on the Dewhurst win: “A most exciting prospect who could develop into one of the greats.”

Here’s hoping we’re about to see the next step on that road.

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