The punters cheering as the winner crossed the line in the Group One Dewhurst Stakes were the ones who had remembered the old gambling maxim that you should always forgive a good horse one bad run.<\/p>\n
Gewan, the 25-1 winner of the season\u2019s most prestigious two-year-old race, had looked every inch a Classic prospect in his first two starts before finishing a lacklustre fourth as the 6-5 favourite for the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster last month. He returned to his earlier form in no uncertain terms under a confident ride by James Doyle, who was soon settled close to the early lead before grabbing a decisive advantage with a move to the front a furlong-and-a-half out.<\/p>\n
Gewan, who runs in the green colours of the Chinese billionaire Zhang Yuesheng, crossed the line three-quarters of a length in front of the 7-4 favourite, Gstaad, foiling Aidan O\u2019Brien\u2019s tilt at a record ninth Dewhurst success. That Gstaad\u2019s main market rival, Distant Storm, was another length-and-a-half away in third, with Zavateri, a Group One winner this season, fourth also gives a solid feel to the form.<\/p>\n
Gewan\u2019s path through his juvenile season has also been a carbon-copy of that taken by Chaldean, the 2,000 Guineas winner in 2023<\/a>, in his two-year-old campaign three years ago. Andrew Balding\u2019s colt is now top-priced at 12-1 to give the trainer a third win in the colts\u2019 Classic since 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were saying coming into the race that he was overpriced,\u201d Balding said. \u201cHis York performance [in the Acomb Stakes] was really good and you\u2019ve got to forgive him Doncaster. So we weren\u2019t without hope, but he\u2019s still got to come and do it, he was given a brilliant ride and he\u2019s a very good horse.\u201d<\/p>\n Gewan\u2019s owner bought into the colt after his impressive win in the Acomb, and took the subsequent failure at Town Moor in his stride.<\/p>\n James Doyle lifts the Dewhurst Stakes trophy after winning the race on Gewan. Photograph: Bradley Collyer\/PA<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re very straightforward and they took the defeat at Doncaster without flinching, having just bought the horse,\u201d Balding said. \u201cThat enabled us to just kick on and stick with the plan we wanted, and that\u2019s the reason he\u2019s here.<\/p>\n \u201cThe soft ground didn\u2019t help at Doncaster, but I don\u2019t think it was just that. For whatever reason, he wasn\u2019t at his best, but he was today. It\u2019s a relief, but his work at home suggested he would play a part today.\u201d<\/p>\n As a son of Night Of Thunder, the 2014 2,000 Guineas winner<\/a>, Gewan is far from guaranteed to get the Derby trip, but a mile-and-a-half at Epsom promises to be ideal for Pierre Bonnard, the winner of the 10-furlong Zetland Stakes.<\/p>\n O\u2019Brien\u2019s colt is by Camelot, the 2012 Derby winner<\/a>, and an impressive physical specimen already with plenty of scope for further progress over the winter. The May festival at Chester is seven months away, but it is easy to see Pierre Bonnard as a leading member of O\u2019Brien\u2019s squad for a meeting where he trialled Lambourn and Minnie Hauk, the Derby<\/a> and Oaks winners respectively, this year.<\/p>\n Quick GuideGreg Wood’s Sunday tipsShow<\/p>\n Chepstow:\u00a01.32 Deep Purple 2.07 Settle Down Jill 2.42 Blueking D\u2019Oroux 3.17 Celtic Dino 3.52 Saint Segal 4.27 Bubble Dubi 5.02 Cooltobecareless.<\/p>\n Goodwood:\u00a01.52 Spiced Rum 2.27 Funlover 3.02 Crazee Icon 3.37 Righthere Rightnow (nb) 4.12 Poseidon\u2019s Warrior 4.47 Knights Gold 5.22 Day Of Grace (nap).<\/p>\n Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a little green, but Christophe [Soumillon] was very happy with him and he\u2019s a very straightforward horse,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cI think he\u2019ll be a Derby trial horse and we\u2019ll go from there, but I imagine he is going to really do well over the winter months.\u201d<\/p>\n The Zetland is the only British Group race for juveniles at a trip beyond a mile but Soumillon reported that Pierre Bonnard, a general 16-1 chance for next year\u2019s Derby, still had plenty left at the post.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I started to ask him to pick up at the four-furlong marker, he changed gear really easily,\u201d Soumillon said. \u201cHe still had plenty of power after the line so I\u2019m sure he will be some horse next season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The punters cheering as the winner crossed the line in the Group One Dewhurst Stakes were the ones…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-193980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}