It is 12 years since Speciosa won at the Craven meeting and took the 1,000 Guineas but Altyn Orda offers value at Newmarket’s season opener
It is nearly four weeks since the first thoroughbred set foot on a turf racecourse in 2018 and Addeybb bolted up in the Lincoln Handicap, but this, at last, is the day when the Flat season gets serious. The ITV cameras will be in attendance for the last two afternoons of the Craven meeting – starting today as the Nell Gwyn Stakes, the first significant trial for the 1,000 Guineas next month – takes centre stage.
It is now a dozen years since Speciosa took this race and went on to follow up in the Classic, and a less auspicious pattern has become the norm in recent years: win the Nell Gwyn, unsighted in the Guineas, as often as not behind a runner from the Aidan O’Brien stable that is making its seasonal debut. Daban, who was John Gosden’s second consecutive winner 12 months ago, did at least make the frame behind Winter, but overall, the trial winners have just been making up the numbers.
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