Martin Dixon: My view on the 2000 Guineas

It's not a race in which I feel there's a super-high standard set by normal 2000 Guineas standards and maybe that opens the race up for horses at bigger prices, maybe to find that bit of improvement to genuinely get involved rather than finishing fourth, fifth, sixth. 

Everything is related to price. The current odds at time that I am previewing this race is around 5-2, 11-4, those sorts of marks, and has been for a few weeks about Bow Echo. 

And when you're only rated 115 – while yes, that's a good rating and we still don't know enough about him - it's not a 120 plus horse already that is sort of price. I think that gives you hope if you're taking him on. 

I'm not sure how strong his form is.  I'm equally not sure how good he is. There could be a load of more improvement in him. But his form isn't that strong, as you read it. He beat Humidity - who we've not seen again since - in the Royal Lodge. He beat Action, who got beaten in a Classic Trial at Sandown recently. He was back in third in that race. And the Haydock race that he won is relatively untested itself. So I'm not sure that he's justified to be quite as short as he is. 

I think Distant Storm’s form is better as it stands at the moment. He comes from finishing third in the Dewhurst last year, handles the track really well. That was a good run in the Dewhurst, one that suggested that he was ready to go up to a mile, even as a two-year-old, the way that he finished off his race. He was strong at the line. 

Being fresh with him could be a good angle as well. He was there quick off the back of his rampant win in the Tattersall Stakes when he went to the Dewhurst, and that might have just knocked a few spots off him, sort of going into the Dewhurst potentially. 

I like him. He's got a proper Guineas pedigree as well. He's by Night Of Thunder out of a mare, Date with Destiny, who was the only progeny of George Washington, who himself obviously was an impressive Guineas winner. So he has a proper pedigree for the Guineas and Charlie Appleby has won three of the last four renewals of the race as well and he can very much get one ready. 

Stall two, is that a little bit on the flank? It is, but it doesn't bother me too much. Coroebus won it from stall one and there's been other horses that have won it in low numbers in recent years. He's drawn almost next to Alparslan who we saw in the Greenham and would be one of the pace angles, I think. 

I think Into The Sky has naturally has made the running on his two start and that's because he's a bit of a bulldozer, isn't he? He seems to jump and want to run, and you can't really anchor him back too much. He's in three, Alparslan’s in four. Oxagon obviously has made all at the track already. He's in ten. 

So I was looking more low to middle than the very high numbers, and that could be a little bit of a problem for Bow Echo. 

Gstaad has got to be a big player. I got the impression that Puerto Rico was maybe the number one 2000 Guineas hope for Ballydoyle and that Gstaad was maybe going to go out to France, but obviously that's changed with Puerto Rico not coming here now. Gstaad’s two-year-old form puts him as the highest-rated horse in the race and he won at the Breeders' Cup the last time we saw him around a bend over a mile. 

Will he get the mile at Newmarket? I'm not 100% sure. So, look, he was a good promising two-year-old last season with loads of experience, but how much more improvement there's going to be this year, I'm not sure.

Whereas I think Distant Storm's not a million miles away already in terms of what he's achieved, and I do think there'll be more progress there. 

I like him and I’ll also mention Avicenna and Needle Match. Those are the horses I’d be throwing in at big prices to run well.