JOHN GOSDEN is hoping to finally end his Betfred 2,000 Guineas hoodoo with red-hot favourite Field Of Gold.
The galloping grey shot to the head of the betting for the season’s first Classic with an impressive win in the Craven Stakes last month.
Six-time champion trainer Gosden, 74, has been trying to win the big one at Newmarket since 1990 when his first runner, Anshan, was third.
But it is still the one race missing from his glittering CV, with Kingman’s last-gasp defeat at the hands of Night Of Thunder in 2014 the closest he’s come.
But Gosden, who now shares the training licence at Clarehaven Stables with his 30-year-old son Thady, insists it’s not playing on his mind.
He said: “It has never weighed on my mind. It seems to be glaring to everyone else but not to me!
“It’s nice to have a horse who at the moment is favourite, but it doesn’t mean that you’re going to win it.
“I’m enjoying it. It’s nice to have a horse of his quality. He’s developed well from two to three, he’s got a lot of scope about him and he’s probably a horse who’ll be able to go further in time, there’s no doubt about that.
“We’ve got some nice horses this year and when you have horses that are running in these races it makes it a lot easier to get out of bed in the morning.”;
Field Of Gold is a general 7-4 jolly for the Guineas with the bookies, and his position at the head of the market strengthened when chief rival, the Aidan O’Brien-trained Twain, was ruled out.
Gosden continued: “I think you have to look at the fact that they probably over-raced a little bit in the Craven.
“Fresh horses in front and they went very hard and therefore he was probably in the perfect position to come from at the back and go past them.
“Having said that the race set up nicely and he finished very strongly. He’s been training nicely this year.
“I expected him to run a good race but we didn’t expect him necessarily to win like that. But on the other hand, I think you’ll find the early fractions were pretty strong.
“It’ll be a smaller field on Saturday and I think they’ll presumably go a good mile pace for a Group 1. I’d expect that.
“I think he was 85 per cent fit in the Craven and there’s no doubt that that first race just tightened and sharpened him.
“He’s probably quite like his father, Kingman, but his father was a different ‘make’ of horse, a powerful bull of a horse but very relaxed and Kingman’s favourite habit was eating and sleeping.
“I think he’s a horse who will probably be comfortable in a race like the Eclipse in future if we ever got there at that time. I think a mile and a quarter would be something well within his comfort.
“But Saturday is a big day, so let’s get that out of the way first.”;
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