Pinatubo on verge of coronation in Dewhurst Stakes

“Pinatubo has got a very slender lead as they approach the last furlong,” or so said the English commentator during the running of the Group 2 Vintage Stakes on July 30. No sooner were those words spoken than Pinatubo took off, leaving his rivals flailing over the Goodwood course.

Pinatubo won the Vintage by five lengths after winning the Chesham at Royal Ascot by 3 ½, that sharp score following two easy wins in May. All those triumphs were nothing compared to the Group 1 National Stakes on Sept. 15 at The Curragh, where Pinatubo delivered a tour de force, drawing clear to win that seven-furlong test by nine lengths. Group 1 races overseas just do not produce margins that wide, and people were harking back to the great Frankel to find a point of comparison for Pinatubo.

In 2010, Frankel won the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes by 2 ½ lengths and no one will be surprised if on Saturday at Newmarket Pinatubo captures the Dewhurst by a wider margin than that. Eight are entered against him in the straight-course seven-furlong race, including four from trainer Aidan O’Brien, but Pinatubo will be an odds-on favorite to complete his 2-year-old season with six wins from six starts.

Trained by Charlie Appleby for Godolphin, Pinatubo is a son of Shamardal and the Dalakhani mare Lava Flow. James Doyle rode the colt in his first four starts, but William Buick was aboard last month in Ireland and has the mount again in the Dewhurst. While Frankel as a young horse often raced too freely, as he did in the Dewhurst, Pinatubo appears very responsive to his jockey’s requests and has waited mid-pack before moving smoothly into contention and blasting home with a truly elite finish. Perhaps he will turn out merely to be a supremely precocious type, but there’s no doubt that Pinatubo has been one of the more exciting European 2-year-olds of recent seasons.

Wichita, one of the O’Brien quartet, is the clear second choice in early fixed-odds wagering offered by British bookmakers. Wichita scored a blowout win of his own in his most recent start, taking the seven-furlong, Group 3 Tattersalls, also run at Newmarket, by seven lengths. Arizona, another O’Brien charge, this one beaten more than nine lengths by Pinatubo in the National, has been mentioned as a possible Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf runner.

Post time for the Dewhurst is set for 10:30 a.m. Eastern and the Newmarket course as of Thursday was listed as good to soft.