Don’t get carried away with Yeats – yet!
That he is entitled, at this stage, to be favourite for the Epsom Derby and considered a colt of immense potential is beyond question.
The Racing Post analysis on Monday said: “Make no mistake, this is something special.” Time may well prove whoever wrote that to be absolutely right.
Add in the high regard Aidan O’Brien clearly has for the son of Sadler’s Wells and you can readily understand why such an air of optimism surrounds Yeats.
But you cannot afford to get carried away in this game. Any logical assessment of what he has achieved in his two races to date will tell you to keep the feet firmly planted on the ground.
His maiden success, at the back-end of last season at the Curragh, indicated a useful horse in the making. The form remains ordinary.
Sunday at Leopardstown showed Yeats has done mighty well from two to three and that soft ground holds no fears for him.
It would be churlish in the extreme to crab the display, indeed he did more than most anticipated, dismissing race-fit Dabiroun with the minimum of fuss.
You would have to say it was a most pleasant performance on the eye and to see him continue to stretch away from the furlong pole, despite Jamie Spencer almost sitting up in the saddle, was a delight.
But in Dabiroun did he really beat anything? John Oxx’s colt had run two fine races this season, over a mile and seven furlongs at the Curragh. But he was in trouble at Leopardstown off the home turn and you would have to wonder if ten furlongs was quite simply far further then he wanted to travel?
O’Brien said in the winner’s enclosure that Yeats would be more suited to better ground. Who are we to argue with him? You can say with real certainty, however, that he flowed, typical Sadler’s Wells, over the soft surface.
There was plenty of talk at Leopardstown on Sunday as well that Yeats’ dam, Lyndonville, was at her best when there was plenty give.
The nose started to twitch, so dug out the form books of ’90 and ’91, when she was two and three respectively.
Lyndonville was trained by John Oxx for Sheikh Mohammed and didn’t run, at least not in this country, at two. At three, she started at Gowran Park in May, on firm ground, finishing seventh and last behind Sunset Village, trained by Oxx and ridden by Johnny Murtagh.
Lyndonville wasn’t seen again until Galway in September, this time on good ground, when Dermot Hogan partnered her to win a 14 furlongs maiden by six lengths.
The Listowel Festival was her final port-of-call, six lengths second to a Tommy Stack horse called Bone China, on good to yielding ground. No evidence then she had to have cut! Anyway, one has to conclude Yeats is a potential star right now - and nothing else. The Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial on May 9 will be the next step and that will tell us a lot more.
Grey Swallow didn’t please everyone with the manner in which he beat Meath in the 2000 Guineas Trial at Leopardstown, but here’s one who liked what he saw.
He travels great through his races and has an excellent attitude. Of course, giving 5lbs to Meath and beating him a head isn’t classic-winning form. But I’ll wager he’s a better horse than last year’s 2000 Guineas hero, Weld’s Refuse To Bend. He’s a knocking each-way for Saturday week?
A scribe at Leopardstown asked Jamie Spencer if he was going to appeal his one-day ban, incurred after he had literally lifted Royal Tigress to a short head victory in the 1000 Guineas Trial.
I thought, at the time at least, it was a gas question entirely. Spencer was done for using his whip excessively and improperly.
Some of us in the press-room counted the number of slaps he administered in the straight and arrived at the round dozen.
If he had settled for one less she probably wouldn’t have got up and yours truly, among many others, wouldn’t have had any need to return to his friendly bookmaker later in the day.
Spencer, you might have thought, had no complaints with the ban and would even have been forgiven for singing all the way back to Tipperary on Sunday night.
But, of course, he has now decided to appeal. Well, there’s nothing like going through life with a smile on your face and optimism in your heart!
