Is Italy the colt to get Aidan O'Brien back on 2000 Guineas honours board?

It’s where the vast majority of the best horses are housed, after all, and sifting through their pedigrees alone can be almost as intriguing as watching them at the racecourse.

I’ve had my greedy fingers burnt already to some extent this summer, having nibbled at what looked like fair antepost prices (25/1) about Daytona becoming a genuine Derby contender in 2026 only for him to finish third in a Group 3 at Deauville earlier this month.

Quite why he was dropped back to seven furlongs having won a Listed race over a galloping mile at Naas the time before is open to question, but Aidan O'Brien’s two-year-olds suffering the odd defeat along the way has never really bothered me as they are trained to progress with time and experience.

Additionally, I suppose when you’re so well stocked then plotting a path for each and every colt and filly must become quite the challenge at times. Not many of them go into the winter with unblemished records, put it that way.

Daytona didn't run at all badly with the benefit of hindsight, sitting prominently throughout but arguably making his challenge on the worst part of the track by the stands’ rail, the horses who eventually took the first two spots having their own separate battle more towards the centre of the course.

I'll comfortably give the son of Wootton Bassett a pass for that first foreign trip and look forward to seeing him in something like the KPMG Champions Juvenile at Leopardstown or the Royal Lodge at Newmarket, both Group 2 mile events prior to potentially ending the year in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud.

Daytona is now 50/1 for the Derby, for those keeping the faith.

My inevitable autumn fling is going to be with Italy, right up there among the best-looking specimens on show throughout the entirety of last week’s Sky Bet Ebor Festival.

Admittedly, I’m late to the party when it comes to this fellow Wootton Bassett colt, having been against him at short prices in the Superlative Stakes, but now he's been on the end of a couple of beatings, it appears my affection has only gone the one way.

That growing warmth is largely down to price all over again. Backed into 8/1 with a few major firms for next year's 2000 Guineas prior to the unlucky Newmarket run when carried across the track late on, he's now all the way out to 25s with Paddy Power and Sky Bet who almost doubled his price following the Acomb second to Andrew Balding's clearly very smart grey, Gewan.

Was it really that bad? A proper step backwards? I may be coming across as a right soft touch here but wasn’t Italy just undone by track position and racing too keenly through the first half of the race? In spite of that early inefficiency, he still briefly threatened the relatively well-placed winner before his run rather flattened out close home.

To my eye, what he has done is a bloody good impression of last year’s Acomb third, Ruling Court, winner of the Guineas two starts later.

Interestingly, there was a mixed response from the ITV Racing pundits when asked where Italy might sit in the O’Brien pecking order prior to last Wednesday’s race – some suggesting there could be better Classic prospects yet to show their hand among the third wave of two-year-olds from Ballydoyle. I’d argue this colt has already effectively formed part of the first and second waves – winning his maiden in mid-May before shaping with huge promise in both starts during July/August – and yet the best is only expected to come when finally presented with a truly-run mile towards the back end of the year.

‘But he’s not won the Guineas since the turn of the decade!’, I hear you cry. A fair observation, but no trainer has landed the first Classic more times than O'Brien, and perhaps kicking off this one's juvenile campaign as early as he did was the first tiny indication that things are going to be a bit different on this occasion.

Sadly, a rematch with Gewan may have to wait with Balding looking to take the same route as Chaldean (another Guineas winner from the Acomb a couple of years ago) which is based around a shot at the Dewhurst, whereas Doncaster could be the perfect end-game for Italy this year.

The Futurity Trophy can throw up all kinds of three-year-old profiles and it's clearly not necessarily a pre-cursor to a Derby campaign. On the contrary, it's worth underlining the fact that it was the autumn Group 1 won by Ballydoyle’s two most recent 2000 Guineas winners, Magna Grecia and Saxon Warrior.

ITALY (Aidan O'Brien)

• 2yo (10 Mar 23)
• Bay | Colt

What the pedigree says…

• Wootton Bassett | Bound

The fifth foal out of 10-furlong Listed winner Bound (Galileo x Remember When), Italy’s four half-siblings are all individual winners and include the John and Thady Gosden-trained Bowmark.

His dam is a full-sister to 2020 Derby winner Serpentine and Group 2 winner Wedding Vow, among other quality performers, while the granddam was runner-up in the 2010 Oaks and is closely related to 2007 Arc hero Dylan Thomas, plus Group 1-winning fillies Queen’s Logic and Homecoming Queen (2000 Guineas).

What Timeform say…

• Rating: 104p

“Italy again shaped very well in defeat 6 weeks on from the Superlative, a slow start forcing him into a change of tactics, meaning that he had to come from much further back than the pair he split, coming clear with the unbeaten and equally exciting winner; in rear, headway under pressure out wide over 2f out, threatened entering final 1f, stayed on; a superb looker, he's just the type to thrive with time and distance, races like the Beresford and the Futurity likely to be on his radar this autumn, Italy remaining a colt of serious potential.”

Top two-year-olds in Britain and Ireland:

113p GSTAAD

111+ WISE APPROACH

110p VENETIAN SUN (filly)

110 POWER BLUE

109p CHARLES DARWIN

109p CONSTITUTION RIVER

109p LIFEPLAN

108p GEWAN

107p ALBERT EINSTEIN

107p COMPOSING (filly)

107 TRUE LOVE (filly)

106p BEAUTIFY (filly)

106p DAYTONA

106p ZAVATERI

106 COPPULL

105p CAPE ORATOR

105p SABA DESERT

105 NORTH COAST

105 ROCK ON THUNDER

104p ITALY

104p ROYAL FIXATION (filly)

104 MORRIS DANCER

What O'Brien says…

• Speaking on Racing TV following the Acomb Stakes

“He ran very well, he’s a lovely big horse. He jumped (from the stalls) and Ryan said he was a little bit slow and the horse that jumped in front of him came back out of it, so that obviously took Ryan back a length or two further than he wanted to be. Ryan said he then had to expose him very early, but he ran a very good race. He’s a lovely horse in the making and he will progress.

“There’s many options for him. We had a choice of coming here or going to the Futurity Stakes (at the Curragh) and obviously we picked we’d come here and from the Futurity you can go to the National Stakes, but it’ll depend on what happens with the others.

“He’s a big horse and he is going to progress.”

What the bookmakers say...

• Prices via Sky Bet & Paddy Power

QIPCO 2000 Guineas: 25/1

Derby: 10/1

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