Ben Linfoot reflects on an enjoyable Sky Bet Solario Stakes at Sandown on Saturday, but he doesn’t fancy the winner for the Guineas.
A quiet Saturday was made all the more pleasant for a cracking little renewal of the Group 3 Sky Bet Solario Stakes at Sandown.
FIELD OF GOLD justified favouritism in pleasing style for John & Thady Gosden, a rare big-race win for the Clarehaven team in what has been a relatively subdued 2024 campaign.
Kieran Shoemark bounced out well on the grey son of Kingman and settled for a second-tier sit behind the leaders, Royal Playwright and Tiger Mask, who took the field along.
Still a little keen in their slipstream, Field Of Gold soon raced more efficiently and was noticeably travelling well at the two-furlong pole. As Royal Playwright and Tiger Mask lugged to the rail, Shoemark soon pushed his mount into the lead which he was not to relinquish.
The response was good and he put the race to bed quickly, Matauri Bay’s late surge into a three-quarter-length second perhaps masking the dominance of the winner a little.
Field Of Gold was having his third run, as opposed to the second and third home who were having just the second starts of their careers, and that experience told, with both Matauri Bay and Royal Playwright likely to benefit for running in this grade.
An important success for the Gosdens as they look to rebuild their squad, this victory gives Field Of Gold a platform from which he could contend races like the Dewhurst Stakes later in the season.
Two of their previous winners of the Solario, Raven’s Pass and Too Darn Hot, went down the Dewhurst route, but others, like Kingman and Reach For The Moon, did not, and Gosden (Thady) admitted afterwards it’s probably between the Newmarket race and the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere as to where this horse goes next.
Yet as important as this victory was for the Gosdens, Field Of Gold was nicely placed here against his main rivals having had the extra run, while the absence of any Irish challengers adds a question mark when assessing his long-term credentials.
I don’t think there is any doubt this horse will stay a mile, he may even get further, but whether he will be quick enough at the distance to win a Guineas is a different matter entirely and revised odds of 16/1 for the Newmarket Classic make very little appeal.
Not when you consider the Irish challenge, led by Aidan O’Brien’s impressive The Lion In Winter, and not when you consider Gosden’s 2000 Guineas record – a race he has never won.
Training them for the first Saturday in May does not seem to fit into Gosden’s modus operandi, for all that he went close with Kingman in 2014, and while his latest quality son of that sire looks a nice prospect, his revised Guineas odds simply look too darn short.
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