Oxx shows skill with Sea The Stars

A quietly spoken and studious Irishman trained the winner of the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket yesterday. But, for once in recent years, it was not Aidan O’Brien who took home the spoils but the grey-haired John Oxx and his bay colt Sea The Stars, only his second runner in the race.
Oxx has long been the understated genius of the training ranks, a man of courtesy and integrity who will tell it as it is, in the gentlest of tones. In the aftermath of Sea The Star’s comfortable victory over the Rowley Mile, Oxx was categoric about his plans. “The Derby will be his next race,” said the trainer. Thankfully, then, there will be none of the controversy that accompanied New Approach’s journey from certain non-runner to Derby winner a year ago.
Remarkably, Oxx has had only one previous runner in the English 2,000 Guineas. His first was Azamour, who finished third here in 2004 and went on to win twice at Royal Ascot (once when the meeting was held at York), the Irish Champion Stakes and the King George. If Sea The Stars can have a career even half as successful as Azamour’s, he will be worth his weight in gold, not least for his jockey, Mick Kinane, who won the first of his four colts’ Classics 19 years ago on Tirol and will turn 50 in June.
“The older you get, the more people are waiting for you to stumble and fall,” said Kinane. “But I’m not ready for that yet.”
No wonder. Kinane’s smile in the winners’ enclosure said it all. Jockeys wait a lifetime for horses with the class and speed of Sea The Stars to enter their dreams and, though he is not the kind of man to hold a grudge, the fact that he has won the 2,000 Guineas on a half-brother to Galileo, on whom he won the Derby for his old employers at Ballydoyle, will only add to the sense of achievement.
Kinane was replaced at Ballydoyle by Jamie Spencer and, by an irony, it was Spencer, on the 3-1 favourite, Delegator, who had to be second best to Kinane yesterday. Kinane was still wondering how Oxx had managed to snatch Sea The Stars, a handsome son of Cape Cross, from under the noses of the shrewd men from Ballydoyle.
While the eyes of many on the Rowley Mile were drawn to Delegator, who had shown such a devastating turn of foot last month to land the Craven Stakes, Kinane tucked Sea The Stars into the pack on the stands side. When Delegator, who had not been confirmed as a certain runner until after his trainer Brian Meehan had walked the course yesterday morning, was pulled out to challenge on the far side as the race began to get serious, the crowd started to roar home their champion. Only Kinane and Oxx knew the truth.
“I was always going to win from a long way out,” said Kinane. “It was just a matter of getting there in my own time. He was a bit babyish going down the hill.”
Though sent off at 8-1, behind Delegator and the two Ballydoyle challengers, Rip Van Winkle and Mastercraftsman, there had been some concern about Sea The Star’s fitness for such an early-season appointment. Suffering from a viral infection in March, the colt had also worked poorly on soft ground last week. Back on the good-to-firm at Newmarket, he never missed a beat.
The question that will occupy experts from now to Derby Day is whether the Guineas winner can extend his range to a mile and a half round Epsom.
“He’s going to be a good ride,” said Kinane. “He has all the qualities of a top-class horse. He’s good, maybe great, and he’s got a great temperament, so Epsom won’t faze him. He’s turned up and won the best Derby trial.” Kinane certainly needs no persuading and Stan James, yesterday’s sponsor, went 4-1 Sea The Stars for Epsom.
Besides the winner, Irish-trained horses filled four of the first five places, with Gan Amhras third for Jim Bolger and the Ballydoyle pair fourth (Rip Van Winkle) and fifth (Mastercraftsman).
Given that Ravens Pass finished fourth last year before winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic five months later and that Johnny Murtagh made eye-catching progress through the field to finish barely two and a half lengths behind the winner, Rip Van Winkle looks sure to enjoy a profitable season.
The same can be said of Delegator, who found the whole experience a bit too much and, according to Meehan, did not relish the ground. There will be other days. “It just got a bit quick for him from the two-furlong pole,” said Spencer. “He’s run a massive race and there are no excuses.”
Today, the fillies have their turn on the Rowley Mile in the 1,000 Guineas, also sponsored by Stan James, with Rainbow View, trained by John Gosden, a strong favourite. Followers of unsung heroes, though, will relish the prospect of victory for Rae Guest, who trains Serious Attitude, the 6-1 second favourite, and Alan Bailey, whose Aspen Darlin has better form than odds of 33-1 suggest. Bailey, a trainer for 35 years, has compared his filly to Posh Spice. “She’s skinny as a rake but with a touch of class,” he says. John Oxx could not have put it better.
Source:The times