Juddmonte in no rush to firm up Cosmic Year target

Connections of Cosmic Year are keen to delay any decision on his 2000 Guineas participation until after the upcoming Classic trials, following his “picture perfect” return to action at Kempton on Wednesday.

A runaway winner on his racecourse debut at Sandown in September, Harry Charlton’s Kingman colt was a long odds-on favourite to pick up where he left off on his three-year-old debut and could hardly have been more impressive as he scooted five lengths clear in the hands of Oisin Murphy.

Barry Mahon, European racing manager for owner-breeders Juddmonte, said: “We were delighted with Cosmic Year, it just went picture perfect. The whole idea of running him there was to teach him something and give him some experience, so to jump out and be able to get the box seat and a lead around was lovely.

“Oisin picked him up well in the last furlong and gave him a little reminder and he stretched on to the line, so it was just what we were looking for and the main thing was to give him that experience of another race. It worked out perfectly.”

Bookmakers quickly took evasive action, with Paddy Power making Cosmic Year their 6-1 second-favourite for the first Classic of the season over the Rowley Mile on May 3.

But with the Juddmonte team having other notable contenders in key Guineas trials in the coming days, nothing is certain at this stage.

“I think the logical thing to do is see what happens in the Greenham and the Craven,” Mahon continued.

“We have Jonquil running in the Greenham at Newbury on Saturday, hopefully Field Of Gold will run in the Craven at Newmarket next week and when we have the full picture we can sit down with Prince Khalid’s (Abdullah) family and hopefully join the dots at that stage.

“Cosmic Year is a young, immature horse with not a lot of miles on the clock and I think Harry just feels that running him on fast ground probably isn’t going to be his cup of tea at this stage of the year, so that will have a bearing on it too.

“We’ll see how the other trials work out, but hopefully we’ll have some hard decisions to make.”