Racing: Attraction too strong for Guineas rivals

A summary glance at the 16 runners in the paddock before yesterday's 1,000 Guineas would have identified the one filly which could not possibly win. Attraction's front legs look as if they have been through a mangle, while a huge backside was clear evidence that her's would be a sprinter's tendency, unsuited to the Classic mile. With Mark Johnston's filly, though, looks are most deceptive.

Not only did Attraction's legs survive the dip of the Rowley Mile, they also moved faster than any of her opponents' as her stamina lasted out in a stalls-to-line success. She remains a thrillingly unbeaten commodity.

The daughter of Efisio first advertised her effectiveness in a blistering high summer last season, studded by five wins in 10 weeks. Then she suffered an overreach while swimming and cracked a pedal bone in September, by when bony changes had been identified in her front knees. The injuries kept coming with increasing frequency.

From the New Year, however, there were no further problems. When the big filly was brought before us yesterday she had spent 299 days off games. Her committee-designed physique was decorated by a white breastgirth and she swished her tail with anticipation.

There is no complication with Attraction. She jumps quickly from the stalls and she runs. So it was yesterday as the field gradually filtered over to the far rail. The 11-2 shot was towards the centre, her wide, thrashing stride clear at the head of the field.

Two furlongs out was supposed to be where Attraction's sinews would give up, but, just at that point, it became clear that neither was she stopping nor those in behind making much progress. The grey form of Hathrah made one insurgence on the far side and Godolphin's Sundrop led the final challenge on the near. But the hard work had been done. Attraction flicked up her ears and pottered left close home, but momentum kept her half a length clear.

"She's an exceptional filly and, cantering down, she was so relaxed in herself," Kevin Darley, her jockey, said. "She got the run of the race. Nothing got around her and chased her along. She took the sting out of them with her early pace, and, by the time they came to her, they had run out of gears.

"She kept going, though she got a bit tired in the last half a furlong. She started to wander, but the damage had been done."

Sundrop's fast-finishing performance in the hands of Godolphin's new Australian signing, Kerrin McEvoy, earned promotion to favouritism for the Oaks (Ed Dunlop's Ouija Board later became a consideration for that race when running away with the Pretty Polly Stakes). Hathrah, in third, was only a length off completing a Guineas double for Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum and probably will run next in the Prix de Diane (French Oaks) at Chantilly.

For Attraction, though, the diary is clinically blank. Yesterday was her day and no long term programme could be devised until she had thrown away her crutches.

Rather neatly, this was 10 years to the meeting since Johnston had registered his only other British Classic winner, Mister Baileys in the 1994 2,000 Guineas. "She stayed on beautifully up the hill but I must admit my heart was in my mouth a furlong and a half out, wondering if they were going to come and get her," the trainer said. "She was a champion two-year-old and is now a Classic winner at three. I wouldn't ask anything more of her now and anything else is a bonus.

"Last year I was careful and always said she was the best of her peer group I had trained. Now I can say she is the best. I've never trained a horse when I didn't fear any other."

It was a rather more orderly Classic than the colts' version 24 hours earlier, when the field scattered on leaving the stalls and then progressed raggedly down the Rowley Mile like Sioux descending on a wagon train.

As such the form may not be highly truthful, but did confirm that Three Valleys is a sprinter, while Whipper too will be seen at his best over shorter trips.

The true merit of One Cool Cat remains undecipherable following his wretched display and tests on the Irish colt this week will determine if he is anything other than $3.1m of a coronary problem. He was suffering from an irregular heartbeat post race on Saturday.

"We will do an ECG (electrocardiogram) on him and, hopefully, by the end of the week we'll know more about what was troubling him," Aidan O'Brien, his trainer, said yesterday. "He seems absolutely fine now and his heartbeat seems normal."

The major lesson of the 2,000 Guineas, though, was that in Haafhd racing appears to have been visited by a quite exceptional miler. And it is to eight furlongs that the chestnut will be kept for the time being. Hopeful suggestions that he might try his stamina and luck in the Blue Riband were squashed yesterday. The St James's Palace Stakes is the next contest.

* Smarty Jones is 10-1 for the Breeders' Cup Classic with Coral after Saturday's Kentucky Derby win. Pleasantly Perfect is 5-1, with Medaglio D'Oro 8-1.

* Today's card at Newcastle is abandoned due to waterlogging.

OAKS (4 June) William Hill: 7-2 Sundrop (from 11-1), 10-1 All Too Beautiful (from 11-1), 12-1 Hathrah (from 20-1), 16-1 Poise, 20-1 Necklace (from 8-1), Punctilious, 25-1 others.