3 hours ago
8
The betting market for the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket on 2 May was thrown into confusion on Tuesday morning when two significant candidates from the Aidan O’Brien stable, Gstaad and Albert Einstein, were taken out of the race, apparently as the result of computer error.
Gstaad, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Del Mar in November, was priced up at around 6-1 for the season’s first Classic on Tuesday morning, and seen as potentially the Ballydoyle first string for a race that the stable has won a record 10 times.
Gstaad assumed the role of O’Brien’s No 1 contender after Albert Einstein, the winner of his first two starts a juvenile in 2025 but unraced beyond May due to injury, finished only sixth of 10 runners on his three-year-old debut in a Listed race at the Curragh three days ago.
Despite that reverse, however, and a subsequent suggestion that Albert Einstein might revert to sprinting with the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot as an initial target, the colt was still priced up at 20-1 for the 2,000 Guineas and O’Brien intended to confirm both two-year-olds at the latest declaration stage on Tuesday.
O’Brien told the Press Association on that both Gstaad and Albert Einstein had been scratched as the result of “a computer error”, adding: “we’re trying to get them back in”.
The trainer expanded on his explanation in a comment to the Racing Post, saying: “There was a blip on the computer. Something happened, the computer went bananas and took out a couple of horses that weren’t meant to be taken out.
“The people here in the office were trying to take the horses out of the Dante, but the Guineas flashed up instead and the button was pressed. They were pressing for the Dante, but as they were pressing, the Guineas flashed up.”
The 2,000 Guineas has a supplementary entry stage, six days before the race, when either or both of the excluded runners could be added back into the Classic at a cost of £30k, and O’Brien later suggested that is now the likeliest route for Gstaad and Albert Einstein.
“I don’t think the BHA will allow them back in,” O’Brien said, “so we will supplement them come the time if that’s what ‘the lads’ [the colts’ owners in the Coolmore Stud Syndicate] decide to do.
“What has happened won’t affect what we will be doing. They will stay on their programmes. At the moment, it looks like we are going to train Albert for the Guineas, and that has also been the plan for Gstaad.”
In the initial aftermath of Tuesday’s declaration stage, Bow Echo and Publish, first and second respectively in the Ascendant Stakes at Haydock in September, moved to the head of the market as 4-1 joint-favourites, from odds of around 6-1 overnight.
Andrew Balding’s Gewan, who beat Gstaad by three-quarters of a length in the Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket in October, also shortened in the betting, from 10-1 to around 6-1, while Puerto Rico, another entry from the O’Brien stable, is around 10-1 (from 14-1).
Paddy Power later re-introduced Gstaad and Albert Einstein to their 2,000 Guineas betting at their overnight prices of 6-1 and 20-1 respectively.
