Stormy Antarctic beats Foundation in Craven Stakes

Stormy Antarctic blew past the heavily favored Foundation and won the Group 3 Craven Stakes on Thursday at Newmarket, racing through a thunderstorm and into the English 2000 Guineas next month.

Ridden to victory by George Baker for trainer Ed Walker, Stormy Antarctic proved that his late-season 2-year-old breakthrough, a head loss to the talented Johannes Vermeer in the Group 1 Criterium International last Nov. 1 at Saint-Cloud, was no mirage, displaying a turn of foot Thursday vastly superior to that of Foundation, who was left reeling as Stormy Antarctic came home strongly after being held up near the back of a six-horse field.

His winning margin was three lengths as Foundation, second by a half-length over Shogun, could not come close to finishing with Stormy Antarctic, who came down the center of the course.

Stormy Antarctic went the straight-course mile in 1:44.01 over ground turned officially “good-to-soft” but far more laboring than that following a heavy rainstorm that hit shortly before the race. Stormy Antarctic goes on to the Guineas next month, also at Newmarket, where, among many others, he’ll face the favored Air Force Blue from the barn of trainer Aidan O’Brien. Trainer John Gosden, however, said Foundation will be pointed to races longer than the one-mile Guineas, with the Dante Stakes being used as a stepping-stone to a possible start in the Epsom Derby.