It was billed as a head-to-head, a showdown between two juvenile heavyweights, but as a contest, the Dewhurst Stakes here on Saturday did not reach the first bell. Air Force Blue landed the decisive blow a quarter of a mile out when he cut through the field on the way to a decisive three-and-a-quarter length success, his third in a Group One this season. Emotionless, the contender expected to give him a serious race, had already faded abruptly to be last across the line.
As Aidan O’Brien, the trainer of Air Force Blue, waited to greet the colt in the winner’s enclosure, it was odd to reflect that scarcely three months ago, rumours suggested that his time at Ballydoyle could be drawing to a close. Thanks to the equally emphatic success of Minding in Friday’s Fillies’ Mile, O’Brien now heads into the winter with the hot favourites for both the 2,000 and 1,000 Guineas next spring. The outstanding trainer of the last two decades appears more impregnable than ever.
Air Force Blue had already been chalked up as a short-priced favourite for next year’s colts’ Classic on this course when O’Brien suggested that he has never trained a better juvenile.
“He’s something that we haven’t had before,” he said “I’d say no doubt, the size of him and the scope, and the class and the way he travelled, and when you let him go, he delivers.
“In February, he was a totally unfurnished baby and he was still head and shoulders above everything else in very soft ground.
“When he was doing that, it looked exceptional, but they still have to do it [on the track]. His mind was very good today, he was in a different zone, he was relaxed and easy. He learned about the Dip and racing, and we couldn’t be more happy with him.”
A handful of bookmakers make Air Force Blue a 5-4 chance for the 2,000 Guineas, but several more quote him at even money. The last horse to head into the winter as Guineas favourite at a similar price was Frankel, who was 4-5 with Coral after his win in the Dewhurst five years ago.
By the time of his Dewhurst success, Frankel was already established as the season’s outstanding juvenile, and O’Brien felt that the focus on Air Force Blue’s rivalry with Emotionless had made his life easier in the run-up to Saturday’s race.
“The horse has won two Group Ones and the spotlight was totally off us, which is a lovely way to come into a race,” O’Brien said. “The focus wasn’t on him, he was at home smiling, oblivious to the whole thing.
“He’s a fast-ground horse, he hardly comes off it. I couldn’t see him getting any further [than a mile], I was worried whether he’d get seven [furlongs].”
John Ferguson, bloodstock advisor to Sheikh Mohammed, the founder of Godolphin, said that William Buick, the rider of Emotionless, was unhappy from an early stage.
“William said he was never really happy with him after about a furlong,” Ferguson said, “which obviously is a very different horse to the one that turned up at Doncaster [in September] for the Champagne.
“He’s a big, rangey, scopey horse. The temptation when you win a Champagne Stakes like that is to come here, and maybe he needed a little more time. Hopefully he’ll turn out to be a lovely three-year-old, which at the beginning of the year is what we always dreamed he would be.”
Adam Beschizza, who won the Cambridgeshire Handicap on Third Time Lucky at 14-1 two weeks ago, achieved the rare feat of completing the Autumn Double when he steered the 50-1 chance Grumeti to a narrow victory over the top-weight Oriental Fox in the Cesarewitch. The combined price for the two winners was 764-1.
