Pinatubo gets first 3-year-old test in 2000 Guineas

There’s no disputing Pinatubo was a sensational 2-year-old of 2019, but what kind of 3-year-old he’ll be in 2020 will become more apparent Saturday at Newmarket, where Pinatubo starts as the heavy favorite in the Group 1 English 2000 Guineas.

Pinatubo hasn’t scared anyone away, with 14 rivals set to face him in this straight-course mile, the first classic race in the COVID-19-delayed English flat season.

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Trained by Charlie Appleby for Godolphin, Pinatubo went 6 for 6 in ’19, moving from a Wolverhampton all-weather-surface novice race in May (where a different Godolphin horse was favored) to the Group 1 Dewhurst in October, never coming close to defeat in six starts. Pinatubo racked up wide-margin victories, too, winning important stakes by five lengths, nine lengths. Jockey William Buick would position him mid-pack, Pinatubo would creep into position mid-race, then finish off his foes with a fast-twitch-muscle tour de force, turning his stride over much faster than anyone else.

It was all very impressive, yet Pinatubo is far from a sure thing to be nearly as dominant this year as he was last season. Consider the specifics. Appleby has said over and over that Pinatubo during fast morning training is just another horse. His performance out on the racecourse took even his connections by surprise. And while he quickened beautifully as a 2-year-old, the impression he gave was of an unusually professional and physically capable juvenile, one who raised his form so high that his ceiling at age 3 just can’t be especially high. He is not an imposing horse, and in the Dewhurst, his last start at 2, it looked like his contemporaries, Arizona, at least, might be narrowing the gap. Pinatubo had buried every horse that tested him before the Dewhurst, where Arizona – who did not go on to distinguish himself in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf – made him work to pull away very late for a two-length win.

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All this is not to say Pinatubo won’t make it seven wins from seven starts in the Guineas, which is expected to be run over good-to-firm ground, but Pinatubo was an odds-on favorite in wagering with British bookmakers as of Thursday and his reputation almost certainly exceeds his actual chance of winning.

Arizona is back for another try, but he might find the stiff late portion of the Newmarket straight mile too challenging. His trainer, Aidan O’Brien, also starts Royal Dornoch, who won the Group 2 Royal Lodge last year; Wichita, who captured the Group 3 Tattersalls Stakes going seven furlongs at Newmarket; and major longshot New World Tapestry.

Kameko could prove a major player. Royal Dornoch nipped him in the Royal Lodge, a race where Kameko raced too keenly, but Kameko came back to easily win the Group 1 Vertem Futurity, a race that had to be moved to the all-weather track at Newcastle because of rain-soaked turf at Doncaster.

Kinross made no impression in the Vertem Futurity, but in his only other start won his debut, a seven-furlong Newmarket novice stakes, by eight lengths.

Post time for the Guineas is 10:35 a.m. Eastern on a card that starts at 8:15 and includes the Group 2 Dahlia Stakes for older fillies and mares over 1 ¼ miles. Terebellum, Magic Lily, and Queen Power look like the main players in the Dahlia.