"I think he's a sprinter" - Albert Einstein well-beaten by Big Gossey

Big Gossey sprang a surprise as he landed the 1xBet.ie Supports Irish Racing Gladness Stakes at the Curragh for the second time, with Albert Einsteinnever threatening and finishing well beaten.

Aidan O’Brien’s 11-10 favourite Albert Einstein had been ante-post favourite for the 2000 Guineas but having been keen enough early, found disappointingly little.

Despite being recognised a a course specialist, Big Gossey was sent off a 25-1 chance to back up last year’s win but the grey came home clear one and a half lengths in front of East Hampton.

Albert Einstein trailed home four and a half lengths adrift in sixth.

“I wasn’t really expecting that,” said winning trainer Charles O’Brien.

“Coming here last year I thought he had a good chance but today I thought there were a few in there that probably had a bit more class than him but you can’t beat honesty.

“The longer I hang around this game, attitude is more important than an awful lot of things.

“If you look at his program for the last seven or eight years it’s going to be pretty much the same!”

Aidan O’Brien said the vanquished favourite would now revert to sprinting.

“I think he’s a sprinter and that was a little bit of the reason he was here. It was a very tough call to run him in that ground against older, harder, horses.

“Obviously we just have to do the right thing by the horse.

“He’s always found it very hard to go slow. Some horses find it very hard to go quick but he finds it very hard to go slow. Usually that kind of horse needs a very strong tempo early.

“The lads will decide but my initial thought is that he’ll be coming back and he’ll go sprinting.

“It’s a very difficult thing to run against those horses in that bad ground. If you have an older horse, strong horse, they can maul a three-year-old.

“He was travelling very strong and in that ground you’d have preferred that he would be travelling a gear or two lower.

“He’s naturally just not able to do that. His tempo is so quick, he is a very high tempo horse. It was in the back of my mind that this is a big sprinter.

“His level of fitness is the same as the horses that are running so they’ll all come on.”

When asked if he could work back from the Commonwealth Cup he added:

“It’s very possible, obviously we’ll go and talk to the lads and see what they want to do but there is a very good chance that that’s the route he’s going to go.

“I know what this horse is able to do. He’s so big and when Ryan sat up on him he could not believe the width of him.

“He’s 560kg going down into that ground, he’s a lot bigger than the horses he was racing against who are probably 460kg or 470kg. This guy is a monster and being that big in heavy ground is very difficult for him.

“I was happy with the way he behaved. He didn’t do anything wrong only that he was travelling a gear or two high and then when he got tired he didn’t fall in a hole, he kept plugging away. That will do his character the world of good. He got tired and he had to keep going.

“He’s a horse who always excited us and I’d say he still will.

“Our option was to play it safe, let him come up here tomorrow, get a little bit tired and finish in the middle of them and then we’d go onto the Guineas and see what would happen.

“When you go back and think of the Stravinskys and the Mozarts and all them, I saw what they would do over seven furlongs. We’re learning on the job.

“He would definitely have a run before the Commonwealth Cup. The sprinters are coming here tomorrow – Charles Darwin, Brussels – we have four sprinters coming here tomorrow and they are all three-year-old sprinters as well and this fella will add into the mix there, as well. This fella was always a bit different but we’ll see.”

Betfred eased Albert Einstein out to 10-1 from 7-2 favourites for the Guineas.