Just because Aidan O’Brien won’t be attending the English 2000 Guineas on Saturday does not mean Aidan O’Brien is not winning the 2000 Guineas. O’Brien will be at Churchill Downs to saddle Mendelssohn in the Kentucky Derby, but he has the ammunition back in England to knock out a ninth Guineas win. Churchill in 2017 provided O’Brien with his eighth win in the first 3-year-old classic race of the European flat season, and O’Brien has three entrants Saturday in the one-mile race over an undulating straight course at Newmarket. Murillo might be used as a pacemaker, but Saxon Warrior has a decent chance, and Gustav Klimt has been favored to win the Guineas for a few weeks now. Gustav Klimt, by Galileo, lost his career debut last May but has since won all three of his races, including the Group 2 Superlative Stakes at Newmarket last summer. A comfortable win over heavy ground April 14 at Leopardstown in a Guineas preview race moved Gustav Klimt to the top of the betting market, and with jockey Ryan Moore, who has ridden the colt in all four of his starts, in Kentucky to ride Mendelssohn, Seamie Heffernan has the mount Saturday. Saxon Warrior was the offseason Guineas favorite after capping an unbeaten three-start 2-year-old campaign with a narrow victory in the Group 1 Racing Post Trophy Stakes. Saxon Warrior, said by his trainer to have developed into a much bigger and stronger version of his 2-year-old self, hasn’t raced since the Racing Post Trophy, and his win there might have lost some luster when runner-up Roaring Lion disappointed in finishing a distant third as the favorite in the Craven Stakes. Roaring Lion tries again in the Guineas, but so does the Craven winner, Masar, who made all the running in that Newmarket race and won by nine lengths. The going was good for the Craven and is expected to be good-to-soft for the Guineas, but Masar, who lost all chance in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf when jockey William Buick lost his iron into the far turn, surely has an excellent chance for Godolphin and trainer Charlie Appleby. Elarqam also has come in for plenty of support in the Guineas, his first start since September, after a two-start, two-win campaign last year. The ballyhooed Expert Eye was beaten as the favorite by fellow Guineas starter James Garfield in the Greenham Stakes next month and just might not be that good. Race 4 of seven on the Newmarket card, the Guineas is scheduled for 10:35 a.m. Eastern.