1000 Guineas Preview: Rhododendron ready to bloom

In hindsight, finding not just the winner but the first three home in last year’s One Thousand Guineas would have been surprisingly simple if only you’d known where to look. It turned out that the result of the Guineas was already in the form-book, being a carbon copy of the outcome of the Moyglare Stud Stakes at the Curragh just over six months earlier when Minding had beaten her stable-companions Ballydoyle and Alice Springs into second and third on that occasion too.

As her name seemed to indicate, Ballydoyle was evidently considered her stable’s number one filly at one time (she started 5/4 favourite for the Moyglare having beaten Minding on her previous start), and though Ballydoyle herself went on to win the Prix Marcel Boussac, it was Minding who ended the season as Aidan O’Brien’s top two-year-old filly with an impressive success under Ryan Moore in the Fillies’ Mile at Newmarket. When Minding led home her stablemates back on the Rowley Mile the following spring with the same jockey, this time it was as the 11/10 favourite.

As it happens, the first three home in last year’s Moyglare Stud Stakes are also all set to re-oppose in this weekend’s 1000 Guineas. This time, however, Aidan O’Brien will be hoping that that particular result isn’t replicated on Sunday because on that occasion the Ballydoyle pair Hydrangea and Rhododendron were upset by 25/1 shot Intricately, a filly trained and ridden respectively by his sons Joseph and Donnacha.

That was a muddling renewal of the Moyglare – the first two, split by just a short head in the end – held those positions throughout, and neither of the two Ballydoyle fillies who filled the places were the stable’s first string – even-money favourite Promise To Be True (later runner-up in the Marcel Boussac) was only fifth under Ryan Moore. The Moyglare result was itself a reshuffle of the result of the previous month’s Debutante Stakes over the same course and distance in which the same fillies had taken the first three places, only this time Rhododendron beat Hydrangea a head into second.

As with Minding the year before, a more definitive picture of the pecking order among the Ballydoyle fillies took shape later in the autumn and once again it was a decisive victory in the Fillies’ Mile which brought some clarity. Rhododendron won at Newmarket by only half as far as Minding had, but she turned the tables on Hydrangea from the Moyglare in no uncertain terms, appearing to relish the extra furlong and staying on strongly up the hill, with another six lengths back to Urban Fox in third. That’s the best piece of form on offer, and a repeat performance from Rhododendron, a daughter of the Irish 1000 Guineas winner Halfway To Heaven, on her return on Sunday will make her hard to beat.

Hydrangea has already had a run this year, winning the 1000 Guineas Trial at Leopardstown by a head from new stable-companion Winter (trained by David Wachman at two), a third daughter of Galileo in the Ballydoyle Guineas team who has a much lower profile than her stablemates but is almost certainly open to the most improvement. Intricately was a considerately-handled fourth at Leopardstown under a penalty, while the third, Rehana, won a Group 3 at Naas against older fillies on Monday.

Minding was Aidan O’Brien’s third winner of the 1000 Guineas, while John Gosden is seeking a second win in the classic after Lahan in 2000. Gosden has proven himself a dab hand with his three-year-old fillies this spring, winning both the main domestic trials with the once-raced Daban in the Nell Gwyn Stakes and the more experienced Dabyah in the Fred Darling. The latter seems more likely to wait for the French equivalent at Deauville (she was a close third in the Marcel Boussac last year), but Daban, who was chased home at Newmarket by Unforgetable Filly and Poet’s Vanity, looks one of the main threats to the Ballydoyle brigade.

It’s not just the principals from the Moyglare who are due to meet again, as the first three from York’s Lowther Stakes last August are all entered on Sunday, though the runner-up in that contest, Roly Poly, seems more likely to represent Ballydoyle in France the following week. However, the first and third from the Lowther, Queen Kindly and Fair Eva, are set to re-oppose when both will be trying a mile for the first time – not a problem if their sire Frankel has anything to do with it, though both were beaten when stepped up to seven furlongs on their last starts and both are out of mares who were very good sprinters. There’s a huge discrepancy in their prices, though, judged on their York form and the booking of big-race French jockey Gerald Mosse for Queen Kindly, a keeping-on fifth in the Fred Darling, is an interesting one.

The other filly to mention is Talaayeb who’s among the top half-dozen or so in the betting but faces a very stiff task on the bare form of her sole start when making a winning debut for Owen Burrows in a Newmarket maiden last September. That maiden has thrown up only one winner since, but Talaayeb seems very highly regarded, justifiably so on her pedigree. Her own dam was Rumoush was third in the Oaks (after finishing seventh in the Guineas) and was herself a half-sister to Ghanaati who was successful in the 2009 Guineas on her first start out of maiden company.

‘They do make one heck of a splash when they come into bloom, and May is their prime season.’ If Alan Titchmarsh is right, maybe Rhododendron was named specifically with the first Sunday in May in mind. Either way, unlike stable-companion Churchill in Saturday’s 2000 Guineas, Rhododendron is top rated by a clear margin in the 1000 and looks a good bet to follow in Minding’s footsteps.

Recommended bet:

Rhododendron to win the 1000 Guineas at 5/2

Read our 2000 Guineas preview here