C's and T's: Dawn Approach's challenge

New Approach made his mark as a serious Classic sire today after Talent's surprising victory in the Oaks. The question is whether he can make it a bis repetita celebration when his son Dawn Approach guns for Derby victory as a heavy favourite.

It seems to be a unanimous feeling that if Dawn Approach gets the 12-furlong distance, he will win. Based on form, there is not much in the race that comes close to Godolphin's representative. The answer to his stamina concerns lies in a momentous discovery in thoroughbred racing central of which is no other than his trainer Jim Bolger himself. It is his company that made the breakthrough that racehorses can be empirically categorized as pure sprinters, stayers and a mixture of both based on samplings of their DNA. To simplify a long story, if C stands for a sprinter-type and T for a stayer-type, then a CC-horse is bound to be primarily a short-distance specialist having received the C genes from both the dam and sire. On the same note, a TT-type horse will be more apt for stamina-challenging races. CT or TC-type horses can turn out to be in either part of the spectrum; they can become great sprinters, milers or stayers.

If Jim Bolger did not have Dawn Approach in the Derby preliminary entries, it is for the simple reason that he had empirical evidence that the colt is a CC-type horse, i.e, a sprinting type not suited for the Derby distance. The story goes that it is the colt's other owner, Godolphin's Sheikh Mohammed that decided to go for the Classic.

Given the above, it is clear that for Dawn Approach to win the Derby, 2 things must happen. First, he must have the class that will carry him through the distance. He will need to find every bit of it in the last furlong to the post, where many other champions (Dubai Millenium is the prime example) have floundered. The manner of all his wins lead me to think that Dawn Approach has that amount of required class. Second, much depends on the quality of his opponents. From what most of them have shown, their forms are very exposed. Battle of Marengo was workmanlike in the Derrinstown Derby Trial. Although unbeaten in 3 races, Ocovango is no Pour Moi although many pundits try to find similarities. Ocovango looks more like a galloper and lacks the burst of acceleration of the Derby winner. He can be in the thereabouts but at current odds, I think he's a great one to lay. The winner could come out of the rest of the pack with the likes of Mars, Ruler of the World or the unbeaten Chopin, but none of them would be a confident pick. It seems that whichever acts more on the Epsom undulations will have a chance of usurping the favourite.

My confident selection is Dawn Approach to be in the first 3. If he takes to the distance, he could rout this field. If not, there might be a dark horse among the rest waiting to bask in Epsom's glory. I don't think it will be Battle of Marengo or Ocovango, so they would be my lays of the race.

Place: Dawn Approach

Lay: Battle of Marengo, Ocovango

Al Zarooni v/s Bin Suroor - a tale of 2 performances

Real Madrid are just running riot against overwhelmed Villareal, and unless the second half shows a change of cataclysmic proportions, this is going to be an easy good recommendation on the Los Blancos.

The general observation over the past years has been that many juveniles that showed great promise in grooming stables such as those of Mark Johnston and Andre Fabre, became flops when they joined the parent Godolphin operation. Many other potentially good 2-year olds that were outright acquired at a high price from other stables also did not do themselves justice once they joined the Dubai stable. Fingers were mainly pointed at trainer bin Suroor (BS) for not only failing to bring on the newcomers properly, but also for wrecking their careers as well.

This year, Sheikh Mo decided to go with 2 trainers and gave his confidence to Al Zarooni (AZ), who was attributed about half the stable and a load of new 2-year olds as well. The results so far are astonishing to say the least. I look at the trainer statistics on the Racing Post today and the numbers don't lie;

Mahmood Al Zarooni     78–389     20%     51     46     46     £1,455,771     £1,839,382     +131.61
Saeed Bin Suroor           48–343     14%     56     40     39     £418,305     £819,341     -112.66

Al Zarooni beats the bin Suroor in every single category. The story so far is that while AZ was winning prestigious Group 1's at Royal Ascot on high-class Rewilding, BS was tasting Group 1 glory in lesser-fancied places like Italy or Germany with old stalwarts like Campanologist! The likes of Blue Bunting and Rewilding that have carried the flag proud for Godolphin this year have all been under the care of AZ.

It is arguable that AZ's dominance can be attributed to the fact he was given the better crop of horses than bin Suroor this year. Only the insiders of the stable would know that for sure. But his better strike rate also demonstrates that he is more likely to get the horses spot-on when he readies them for a race, than his counter-part.

It is worth of note that Godolphin used to command a strong contingent running Stateside under the care of BS. This year, their incursions on that side of the point has been rather tepid relative to previous years. There is no doubt that bin Suroor's influence has diminished on that ground as well.

Whether these are the results of Godolphin politics or Sheihkh Mo's decisions, it will be interesting to see how all this folds out. The main interest for a punter is that when you look at a racing card, check the trainer first. In these current times, the odds are that an AZ-trained horse will give a better performance than a BS-trained one.