2000 Guineas Antepost Tips 2024: Two big-price selections for first Classic

| April 01 |

3 mins read

The 2000 Guineas - a Group 1 for three-year-olds over the straight mile at Newmarket - is the first of five Classic races during the British flat season and this year's renewal takes place on May 4.

City Of Troy is a short-priced favourite to give Aidan O'Brien a record-extending 11th success in the race, but I've looked further down the market for my 2000 Guineas Antepost Tips.

2000 Guineas Antepost Tips 2024

Ghostwriter @ 16/1
God's Window e/w @ 40/1

It's hardly a ground-breaking statement, but this year's 2000 Guineas is all about Aidan O'Brien's City Of Troy. If the son of Justify has trained on, he's going to be very hard to beat.

However, if ever there's a race to take on such types it's the first Classic of the flat season. See files marked Auguste Rodin (2023), Pinatubo (2020), Air Force Blue (2016), Kingman (2014), etc...

These young horses improve at wildly different rates and as the majority of the field will be having their first run of the campaign, it's incredibly difficult to know what to expect from them all.

For that reason, I prefer to look further down the market for a bet - especially at the antepost stage.

The first one of interest to me just over a month away from the event is GHOSTWRITER for Clive Cox.

The son of Invincible Spirit won impressively on his debut at Newmarket - the July Course - in August last year over seven furlongs and followed up in a similar event at Ascot a month later, before landing the G2 Royal Lodge Stakes over the 2000 Guineas' course and distance a few weeks later to round off an unbeaten two-year-old campaign.

I thought he won with plenty in hand that day, downing the 103-rated Al Musmak, who in three runs had only been beaten by Rosallion who is currently 11/2 for the 2000 Guineas, fairly snugly.

On bare form he's got a bit to find, but we're yet to get close to his ceiling and as I said before these horses can improve significant amounts for turning three, which I'll be hoping is the case here.

It's been a wet winter and soft ground would be a question mark for Ghostwriter, but not for John & Thady Gosden's GOD'S WINDOW.

He's probably more of a Betfred Derby type, but the son of Dubawi is a huge price for this on what we've seen from his short career so far.

It was a smart effort to win a strong maiden at Doncaster's Betfred St Leger meeting first time out back in September and his subsequent third in the G1 Futurity Trophy over course and distance marked him as a classy individual in my book.

Slow out of the gates and keen early on, he did extremely well in desperate conditions to make eye-catching headway late on and almost beat the 101-rated Devil Point into second, behind Ancient Wisdom who is Charlie Appleby & Godolphin's leading Guineas hope this term.

There's so much more to come from this colt, it's just whether it all comes a bit too soon or not. Either way, if he wins his prep run - I believe that's the plan - and some of the shorter-priced runners in the market are withdrawn as expected, I can see him going off half the price... if not more.