Hugo Palmer Newmarket runners blog: 'This has been the plan and we're sticking to it'

For this first blog of the year, leading trainer Hugo Palmer exclusively shares his thoughts with Coral on his two Newmarket runners on Tuesday and Wednesday.

We won this race last year with It Ain’t Two, she came here after a very wet spring, and we hadn’t been able to gallop the horses very much, so she was something of a surprise winner, whereas this year, I would say Ruby’s Angel is much better prepared, and she’s really been pleasing me at home.

It Ain’t Two also faced a larger field [of 13], rather than the six rivals we face this time, although in Twilight Star, we take on a very nicely bred Godolphin filly, whose dam, Chasing Dreams, was another previous winner of this race. They’re all newcomers obviously, so we have no form to guide us, but what I would say about our filly is if she’s not winning here on debut, I don’t think it will be too long before she is off the mark.

Nine have been declared for the Craven Stakes, and looking down the entries once they closed, my first thought was, this is a proper race! Several of the big operations are represented, and there will be no hiding place for The Waco Kid. In his favour though, is he likes Newmarket, and won his Group 3 well there last year. 

We then took him to the Breeders’ Cup, where things just didn’t go well for him, he didn’t thrive out there as we’d have hoped. However, that trip didn’t leave any mark on him, and he’s done well back home through the spring.

He’s fit and well, and ready to run, and although he won on good to firm as a 2-y-o, I think any rain would only help his cause, in as much as it would inconvenience some of his rivals more than it would him. As I say, it’s a strong looking Craven, but it was always the plan for him, and we wanted to stick to it.

He does have the 2,000 Guineas entry, although at this stage I see him more as a Group 3 type rather than Group 1, it would be expecting a lot to think he’s improved that much over the winter. That said, we’ll find out plenty here, I hope he can do himself justice, and then we can plan accordingly for the rest of the season.

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