Crown can be Camelot’s

The tantalising possibility of a “serious” horse going for British racing’s Triple Crown emerged with Camelot’s victory in the Qipco 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket yesterday.

Serious horse is how trainer Aidan O’Brien habitually describes his great winners such as Galileo, Rock of Gibraltar, and Yeats, and Camelot looks to be another in that line.

The trouble is that none of O’Brien’s great animals – or indeed any other trainer’s best horses in recent decades – could perform at all three different distances for the Crown, which comprises the mile of the Guineas, the 12 furlongs of the Derby and the 14 furlongs of the St Leger.

O’Brien will aim Camelot at Epsom, but the assured stamina of the colt suggests that the St Leger distance will not be beyond him. His owners, the Coolmore Stud partners John Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith, must know they have a special horse in their possession and they will realise that a Triple Crown bid would dwarf everything else in racing this year.

Nijinsky was the last colt to win the Crown as long ago as 1970 when trained by O’Brien’s namesake Vincent, with Oh So Sharp lifting the fillies’ Crown for Henry Cecil in 1985. How tempting it must be for the Coolmore-Ballydoyle gang to think of their horse in that pantheon.

“We will go home and the owners will discuss it among themselves,” said O’Brien. “The Derby is something to look forward to – but we take it one race at a time.”

Immediate pundit reaction was that the colt’s win by a neck from French Fifteen was not the stuff of a superstar but, in time, that verdict could be shown to be so much tosh for several reasons, not least because Camelot is the first Racing Post Trophy winner to lift the Guineas for 40 years.

Camelot won over a distance well short of what will eventually be his best, he did so on unsuitable ground without a seasonal prep run, and he had enough in reserve to see off the valiant French Fifteen, a Group 1 winner in France.

Opinion was divided as to whether 18-year-old Joseph O’Brien had ridden balefully or brilliantly, as he seemed to have dropped Camelot too far back before showing undoubted skill to weave through the field and hit the front inside the final furlong.

The race developed as it often does with the 18 runners split into three groups as they charged down the Rowley Mile. Abtaal led the far side group, Caspar Netscher led the smaller middle division, while Trumpet Major and Redact were to the fore on the stands side, with Camelot well to the rear in that group.

O’Brien started his forward move three furlongs out and as the three groups began to converge he did well to find a path through, being joined in the van by French Fifteen under Olivier Peslier.

The Irish lad certainly seems to have inherited the ice cool nature of his father, as he kept Camelot going just long enough to win by a neck from French Fifteen with cross-Channel raider, Hermival, in third and Trumpet Major the first home-trained horse to cross the line in fourth.

Jockey O’Brien said: “He has a lot of class and a lot of speed and I always felt happy. I didn’t get the best of runs through and he’ll be a lot better horse going over further.”

Trainer O’Brien added: “It’s one of those unbelievable days. We knew from the statistics that Camelot had a lot against him, we knew he had a lot to overcome but we always thought he was very special.”

French favourite Meandre flopped in the preceding Qatar Bloodstock Jockey Club stakes, the Group 2 event going to 15-2 shot Al Kazeem, the mount of James Doyle who has teamed up with trainer Roger Charlton to considerable effect in big races.