Racing: Rain holds up the home team

FOR VISITORS to take the Guineas trials away from Newmarket is as unthinkable as a guest leaving a birthday party with a handful of presents, writes Richard Edmondson. Headquarters has not released both the Nell Gwyn Stakes and the Craven Stakes in a season for a very long time now, but it may happen this year and for one main reason. Rain.

The deluge that has fallen all over the country this spring has affected no training grounds worse than those at Newmarket. The local reservoir is full and, since the town cranked back into working life on 1 February, gallops have been conducted as damage limitation exercises rather than a route to fitness. Henry Cecil has said that his horses have never been as backward.

This does not bode well for the chances today in the Craven Stakes of the 2,000 Guineas favourite, Grand Lodge, quite apart from the fact that Western General, who is reported to have worked respectably with the Classic horse, was a well-supported but disappointing performer on the first day of the meeting.

Grand Lodge and another of Newmarket's more celebrated equine inhabitants, Cecil's King's Theatre, have been dealt no favours by their high draws. One lesson this week has been that those on the far side have been at a huge disadvantage. They have been in the swimming lane, while horses down the middle have been running along the poolside.

Yesterday's big race for three-year-olds fitted the overall pattern snugly, with three horses from out of town filling the frame and the winner, Bluegrass Prince, emerging from the firm corridor down the centre of the course. If the trend continues today, the lost reputation skip will be further topped up and a second jewel will be chipped away from Newmarket following Mehthaaf's victory for John Dunlop in the Nell Gwyn on Tuesday.