For me the star of the show on QIPCO 2000 Guineas day was a mare – Mabs Cross.
What a performance she produced to record back-to-back victories in the Zoustar Palace House Stakes despite carrying a Group One penalty.
The buzz beforehand was it was just a case of how far Sergei Prokofiev was going to win by – and he was duly backed off the boards – but it was Mabs Cross who found the gears to cut down Equilateral inside the final furlong.
It was nice for her – and connections – to be on the right side of a tight photo finish after the heartbreak they went through in last year’s Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes at York.
👏Now that's how to return to action...back-to-back wins in the Palace House for the fantastic Mabs Cross who defies her Group One penalty.pic.twitter.com/NJXlqUZddi
— Sporting Life (@SportingLife) May 4, 2019
Full marks to trainer Michael Dods who, for a combined purchase price of less than 20,000 guineas, has had two star sprinting mares in recent years with Mabs Cross and Mecca’s Angel.
Her jockey Paul Mulrennan, despite being a mad Chelsea fan, is a great lad, and he’s now only nine short of a 1000 career winners. It will be some celebration when he gets there.
With owner David Armstrong sponsoring the Temple Stakes at Haydock, we know where the winner will be heading next and she’s going to take some stopping in all the big sprints this season.
The QIPCO 2000 Guineas itself felt a little unsatisfactory. We felt beforehand we may be long on quantity and short on quality this time around, and the race itself left me scratching my head.
We called it out beforehand on ITV that Shine So Bright held the key to how the race would unfold. He was the pace angle and Silvestre De Sousa decided to go for the golden highway by the nearside rail.
There was a clear advantage to being there and the winner, Magna Grecia, and runner-up King Of Change, took full advantage.
📺2000 Guineas Video 🏇
— Sporting Life (@SportingLife) May 4, 2019
Magna Grecia may have been favoured by racing on the stands' side, but he was still #muchthebestpic.twitter.com/6BDmi3gekc
Time will tell if we saw a really good horse win the first Classic of the season, but those who were racing down the middle will be itching for a rematch. Throw in absent friends such as Too Darn Hot, Quorto and Mohaather and there’s a lot up for grabs in the division.
I was amazed afterwards, given the way Coolmore do their blanket big-race entries, to see Magna Grecia isn’t even in the Investec Derby and that caught a few bookmakers on the hop.
But we’ve learned again to keep it simple in the QIPCO 2000 Guineas. Just back Aidan O’Brien’s Vertem Futurity winner.
I spoke to him afterwards to tell him he was the first trainer to rattle of a hat-trick of successive winners of the race since James Edwards in the 1830s. Brough Scott and Dale Tempest tell me he was very good back in the day.
Ten 2000 Guineas winners is a remarkable achievement for Aidan, especially when you consider that when he won his first with King Of Kings, Donnacha O’Brien wasn’t even born.
Clearly he’s a decent sire as well as world class trainer.
It could be a story of more O’Brien domination of Sunday’s QIPCO 1000 guineas too. It’s well documented I’ve backed Just Wonderful at 50/1, Matt Chapman telling me before the Rockfel last year that I could have any price I wanted about her winning this Classic. I may have a little fun at his expense if she does.
However I’m no more than hopeful in a wide-open heat. The value bet right now is Iridessa each-way. She’s a huge filly, weighing way over 500kg, and will strip an awful lot fitter from her reappearance at Leopardstown. She looks the rock-solid option.
24 hours after Aidan and Donnacha enjoyed their day in the sun (and wind) at Newmarket – Sunday could belong to another O’Brien in Joseph
Jump figures soar
It was wonderful be able to report this week that ITV's audience for our Jumps season coverage increased 14% year on year.
On average the viewing figures across ITV [main channel] and ITV4 rose by 81,000 per broadcast for jumps meetings for the season from October through to April.
For 2018-19, an average of 664,000 watched each live show, compared with 583,000 during the 2017-18 jumps season. Audience share was up by 1.3%.
Overall, our coverage across both the main channel and ITV4 reached 16.5m people (based on watching 5+ consecutive minutes at least once), representing an increase of 1.3m viewers.
Audience figures for the 2019 Randox Health Grand National rose by more than a million viewers year on year with a peak of almost 10 million tuning into the main race and 17 year highs on the Festival Thursday and Friday.
This followed a 19% year on year increase on average audience figures for the Cheltenham Festival with daily peak figures also rising by 18% across the week.
Everyone involved works so hard – and keep working hard to innovate and improve our coverage – it’s wonderful to see so many people tuning in.
