St Nic is there to be shot at, and Xtension looks each-way value

MUCH of today’s Newmarket 2000 Guineas centres on how well favourite St Nicholas Abbey has trained on from last year. Not that he’s susceptible to not having done so but he was frighteningly good in last year’s Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster and it can be the case that the most exceptional juveniles fail to progress at three.

Dropped out the back in a modestly run race on good to soft ground, he picked up like a five-furlong sprinter as he scythed through the field to earn a massively impressive success over Elusive Pimpernel and Al Zir. An excuse has been offered up for the defeat of the runner-up but it’s hard to deny that the winner emerged from the race looking like a vastly superior animal.

What Elusive Pimpernel may have in his favour now is that he handles the famous Newmarket dip, excels on the climb to the line and is race-fit. Nevertheless, his recent Craven victory, impressive as it ultimately was, showed once more that he can get tapped for toe mid-race. It happened last term and is likely to continue while he races at distances up to a mile. The victory did, at least, give a clear indication that he’s improved from last season but it’s also tempting, and feasible, to take the form as further enhancement of the claims of St Nicholas Abbey.