1000 Guineas flash: Bet this Ballydoyle pair at 6/1 and 25/1

IMPORTANT NOTE: THERE IS A HIGH PROBABILITY THAT ONE OF THE HORSES RECOMMENDED IN THIS ARTICLE WILL NOT RUN

Following today’s media event at Ballydoyle, we are releasing this flash article while a high-risk opportunity arises to get this stable’s two principal contenders for this race at inflated prices. In short, O’Brien appears to be targeting the first fillies' Classic of the season with two key horses, Lake Victoria and Exactly.

Only Exactly is certain to be ready for the race on fitness grounds, having made a decent comeback in the G3 Priory Belle at Leopardstown at seven furlongs in late March. She was beaten at odds-on for that race but had a very bad draw and was wide throughout. Her trainer was delighted with the run and expects to come on for it considerably, particularly when this daughter of Frankel is upped to a mile. The 25/1 widely available looks simply enormous, not least given the trainer’s profile in this race (see postscript for longer article on stable record below) – unlike an ideal 2000 Guineas profile, an experienced filly with a seasonal run under her belt is exactly the type that O’Brien excels with when it comes to the first fillies’ Classic of the season.

However, the stable’s star filly Lake Victoria still has a chance of making this race. She has been behind in her work (after a longer break than her stablemates) and was considered a doubt, but the newsflow today changed back again, with the steer now being that she may well be fit enough to contend on May 4. This filly answered every question asked of her as a 2-year-old as she racked up five wins in a row, including three Group 1s at different distances, in different countries, and on different types of ground. This gives her reasonable claims of being the best 2-year-old filly to come out of Aidan O’Brien’s yard, and she stands head and shoulders above anything else in the race on form. Although she might not make the race, the 6/1 currently available would rapidly become less than half of that price if she were to be confirmed, and if the subsequent vibes were strong she could be an extremely short favourite, the presence of Godolphin filly Desert Flower notwithstanding.

These bets are linked in ways good and bad. If Lake Victoria doesn’t make the starting gate, the price of Exactly will plummet: as stable first string under Ryan Moore, she would start in single figures without any doubt. If Lake Victoria does win her race against time there is a possibility of Exactly being rerouted to the French Guineas a couple of weeks later. In other words, there is strong possibility that only one of these fillies will run. But in our view, the prices currently available make this a risk well worth taking.

Recommendation: Back Lake Victoria at 6/1 and Exactly at 25/1 for the English 1000 Guineas at Newmarket on 4 May. WIN ONLY. Both prices widely available.

Postscript:

Aidan O’Brien’s record and modus operandi in the 1000 Guineas

In stark contrast to the English 2000 Guineas, backing all Ballydoyle runners blindly in the 1000 Guineas staged the following day would have been very financially rewarding. A pound to win on every horse entered by O’Brien in the race (50 runners, hence a wagering pot of £50) would have returned £82.10 – a handsome profit of more than 60% on the total stake invested.

But what immediately stands out from the data for the fillies’ Classic is the profitability of the “overlooked” Ballydoyle horse. Of his seven winners, only Minding (2016) could be considered a red-hot favourite at 11/10, with Love in 2020 (4-1, joint second favourite) being the only other winner to be sent off at short odds. The other five winners have returned at decent prices:

Virginia Waters (2005)                12/1

Homecoming Queen (2012)    25-1

Winter (2017)                                9/1

Hermosa (2019)                            14/1

Mother Earth (2021)                     10/1

Unsurprisingly, therefore, a betting strategy targeting the Ballydoyle first string would have been little short of catastrophic: £1 on each such entrant would have returned just £7.10, which equates to an eye-watering loss of almost 75% of the total stake pot of £27 invested. Nor is it a case of the stable not having had many fancied runners: a whole clutch of short-priced favourites have been beaten over this period:

Rumpelstiltskin (2006)              3/1, finished 7th of 13

Maybe (2012)                             13/8, finished 3rd of 16

Tapestry (2014)                           4/1, finished 17th of 17

Rhododendron (2017)               5/2, finished 2nd of 14

Happily (2018)                            11/4, finished 3rd of 15

Santa Barbara (2021)                  5/2, finished 4th of 11

Tenebrism (2022)                        11/4, finished 8th of 13

One obvious conclusion to be drawn here is that neither the trainer, nor his main jockey, nor the betting community generally have been very good at identifying Ballydoyle’s best chance in the first British Classic for the fillies run on the first Sunday in May. In this respect, the contrast with the colts’ equivalent on the same weekend could hardly be more different.

Linear look reveals a “game of two halves”

From left to right, here are the top finishing positions of the best-performing Ballydoyle runner in the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket over the years, starting in 1998 (in which Shartoush claimed the runner-up spot) and ending with Ylang Ylang’s fifth-place finish last year:

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Broadly speaking, this reveals a clear pattern of two halves: In the first 13 years of trying to conquer Newmarket with the fillies (19 “darts thrown”), only Virginia Waters was able to cross the finishing line in front for O’Brien, while only two other entrants were able to even place.  In the last 14 years, by contrast, the record has been stellar, for all that more darts (31) have been thrown: six wins (Homecoming Queen, Minding, Winter, Hermosa, Love, Mother Earth), and four podium placings for good measure. That said, after golden era of five trophies in just six years, it’s been a few seasons now since the 1000 Guineas trophy was taken back to County Tipperary.

STN – a changing picture

With Ballydoyle’s 2000 Guineas runners, the policy of taking a horse “straight to Newmarket” (STN) without a prep run was clear: A solid 53 of O’Brien’s 61 entries in that race – including every single one of his ten winners – were making their seasonal debut in the first Classic of the season. The overall figures for the fillies’ equivalent look very different and point to a two-pronged approach, with just 26 of 50 runners in the 1000 Guineas over the period 1998-2024 having taken the “STN” path.

However, this overarching statistic obscures a shifting trend. Just as the “linear look” above reveals a marked difference in success when O’Brien’s Guineas record is broken into two halves, so too does the preference to keep a horse fresh for Newmarket undergo a significant change when the same breakdown is applied. In the first 13 years of the period 1998-2024, just eight of O’Brien’s 22 runners were given the STN treatment, whereas over the second half of that timeframe 18 of the 31 Ballydoyle fillies to have been sent across the Irish Sea were coming into the Newmarket race fresh.

This evolving STN dynamic also goes hand in hand with O’Brien taking a firmer stranglehold at the top of the market. The more fancied a horse he has brought over, the less likely he is to have given it a prep run first, and he has had many more short-priced horses in the second half of the period 1998-2024 than he has in the first. What stands out once again is his relative lack of success in delivering with these short-priced STN runners. This, combined with the strong performances of many fillies at much bigger prices who have been given a run, makes it only reasonable to ask whether O’Brien’s record might not have been better if these shorter-priced fillies had enjoyed the benefit of an outing first.

On the other hand, it is important to remember that the 1000 Guineas has been a stepping stone rather than the be-all and end-all for many of top distaffers. Aidan O’Brien has a season to nurture them through and many other major targets in mind, particularly the Epsom Oaks, so taking a patient is understandable from that standpoint. 

However, that approach does need bearing in mind from the betting perspective, as the historical vulnerability of Ballydoyle’s top fillies in May looks a fairly robust statistical situation. Also in keeping with the general trend is the fact that three of his seven Guineas winners to have been sent off at hefty prices have won at Newmarket off the back of at least one seasonal start. In contrast to the 2000 Guineas, therefore, “STN” is not a prerequisite of success for an O’Brien horse running in the fillies’ equivalent.

Conclusion

Aidan O’Brien has a strong record when it comes to his lesser lights performing well in the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket, much more so than he does with his stable stars. With this in mind, a strong performance on the first Sunday in May from one of the current stable outsiders in the betting would come as no surprise at all, as Virginia Waters, Homecoming Queen, Winter, Hermosa, and Mother Earth were all successful at Newmarket without G1-winning form at two, while three of that quintet took in a prep run beforehand. The most interesting entry to fit this statistical trend is Exactly, whose return run in the Priory Belle was extremely promising. Only an appearance by star filly Lake Victoria – still not certain to make the race – seems likely to stop Exactly from being the stable’s first string in the race so the latter should be backed accordingly, with a saver on Lake Victoria looking like logical insurance.