Europe: Desert Castle looks like the goods in Dewhurst

Only five 2-year-old colts were entered in Saturday’s Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket. Only three look like rationally plausible winners. Two of them stand far above the rest in the antepost betting market. And Group 1, $661,000 Dewhurst might in the end prove a one-horse race.

Desert Castle after two dominant wins to begin his career stands as early favorite for the 2000 Guineas next May, and he will stand as an odds-on favorite in the Dewhurst, a seven-furlong straight course contest that usually attracts at least a couple of the leading juveniles in England and Ireland.

Desert Castle qualifies – and looks the part. Physically advanced for his age, Desert Castle, a Godolphin homebred trained by Charlie Appleby, is by Frankel out of Sand Vixen, by Dubawi. Doesn’t get much better than that pedigree. He debuted over the July course at Newmarket in an annually strong seven-furlong maiden race, cruised up to the lead with more than a quarter-mile remaining, and despite wandering off his line, put a pasting on seven foes of questionable quality.

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A step up in class, to the Group 2 Champagne Stakes on Sept. 12 at Doncaster, yielded an even easier win. Breaking slowly under Billy Loughnane, Desert Castle took cover at the back of a five-runner field, and when Loughnane unleased him with 2 1/2 furlongs remaining, it was game over. Loughnane never wielded his crop as Desert Castle pulled three lengths clear of second favorite Sergie Diaghilev. Top stable rider William Buick takes the mount for Saturday’s race.

Aidan O’Brien trains Sergie Diaghilev and throws two different rivals at Desert Castle in the Dewhurst. Great Barrier Reef is a distant third choice after coughing up a lead and going down to an odds-on defeat Aug. 29 in the Group 3 Round Tower at the Curragh. Great Barrier Reef has yet to race beyond six furlongs, won the Group 2 Coventry in June at Royal Ascot, and until proven otherwise, looks like an early developing colt with distant limitations.

Top stable jockey Ryan Moore rides Darkness Falls, the strong second choice behind Desert Castle, but Darkness Falls presents an unusual profile.

O’Brien debuted him over one mile at Leopardstown, ran him back over a mile at the Curragh, and then sent Darkness Falls out to win the Group 1 Golden Fleece over 1 1/8 miles last month at Leopardstown. Darkness Falls made all the running in his second-start blowout, and drew away impressively in the Golden Fleece, but O’Brien rarely if ever has turned a horse back two furlongs in distance to start in the Dewhurst.

Darkness Falls appear to have the makings more of a Derby prospect than a Guineas hope, and even at his best, he could struggle to muster the turn of foot and finishing burst that the Dewhurst favorite already has displayed.

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