Aidan O`Brien will, one day, in all probability sooner rather than later, win his record 50th British Classic – take my word for it. The first Sunday in May the master Irish trainer won his 49th with True Love in the One Thousand Guineas at Newmarket. The plan was for Precise, as favourite for that same race, to be the fiftieth after the 49th had fallen to O`Brien`s Gstaad the day before in the colts` Two Thousand Guineas. The plan didn`t quite work out

Gstaad came up just short in the first Classic of 2026, a honourable runner-up to Bow Echo. But second place for O`Brien and Coolmore is not precise enough. Precise (so apparently aptly named) in the fillies Classic, wasn`t up to the job either despite being first string and the mount of stable jockey Ryan Moore. It just wasn`t her day. Precise finished down the field. True Love took over, in style.

In the Two Thousand Guineas Gstaad was only joint-favourite, locked with Godolphin`s Distant Storm. But the unbeaten Bow Echo, only third-best in the market and, for the first time in his four-race career, not the favourite, retained his record in a manner suggesting he will be hard to beat throughout the season.

First and second in the season`s first Classic were an astounding eight lengths ahead of Distant Storm in third. Either we have a couple of outstanding colt milers – or the crop as a whole could be moderate. Distant Storm had twice been beaten by ante-post favourite Gewan at two and Gewan`s untimely death on the gallops robbed the race of a performer who would surely have added weight to this being a strong renewal.

It is far from unknown for O`Brien`s second or even third string to cause upsets because the Coolmore maestro always has an arsenal of horses to choose from for all the top races. You only have to think back to two of his Derby winners – Wings of Eagles (2017) at 40-1 and Serpentine (2020) at 25-1 when each time he had far shorter-priced representatives.

But the Two Thousand Guineas was trainer George Boughey and his jockey Billy Loughnane`s day, you could go further and say their coming of age. There was frustration for some on the Saturday…heavily touted Gstaad would have been an impressive winner but for the intervention of Bow Echo and the phenomenon that is 20-year-old Billy Loughnane. In his fifth season in the saddle Loughnane`s burgeoning association with trainer Boughey, only 32 himself and in only his seventh season with a licence, their pairing promises to be the home-bred dynamic duo to take the battle to Coolmore and Godolphin in the years to come.

The speed of Loughnane`s and Boughey`s arrival in the highest echelons is quite astonishing. Loughnane`s four completed seasons have seen his winning totals rise year on year from 6 to 130 to162 to 223 in 2025 – the record for a jockey this century in a calendar year. A big proportion of Loughnane`s rides start favourite, a sure indication of universal acknowledgment of his following and worth.

This was Boughey`s second Classic success, the first being the filly Cachet in the One Thousand Guineas of 2022. Boughey has a reputation already for his shrewd purchasing though Bow Echo and Cachet were both sent to him by the deceased Sheikh Obaid and Highclere Thoroughbreds respectively.

Boughey will train Bow Echo with the aim of making him champion miler. The colt is by Night of Thunder: third home, Godolphin`s Distant Storm is also by Night of Thunder who is reigning champion sire and who won his Guineas at 40-1 in 2014.

There were several absentees from the Two Thousand, apart from Gewan. But the way Bow Echo spread-eagled his field confirmed that the colt`s unbeaten record is one he will not surrender easily.

Like seven of the last eleven winners of the Two Thousand Guineas, Bow Echo was making his seasonal debut and the trend is for high-profile two-year-old races to carry greater significance than the traditional early-season trials for three-year-olds. O`Brien for example is unfazed when his Classic prospects don`t exactly shine in prep races at three, neither confirming or revealing themselves as serious Classic contenders - all his record ten Two Thousand Guineas winners were making their seasonal debuts! There is a bigger picture.

Trainers are delighted to show their wares, putting on pre-season stable tours for media and public alike. The invitation everybody wants to be on is, of course, to Ballydoyle in County Tipperary, Ireland – the Court of ‘King` Aidan. Seven-time champion trainer in Britain; twenty-seven (!) time champion in his native Ireland, O`Brien`s achievements worldwide are unpatrolled, the figures extraordinary though they surely show a trend: seven One Thousand Guineas wins over a mile for the fillies and ten Two Thousand Guineas victories over the Rowley mile for the colts, but none since 2019. Against that - eleven Epsom Derbies and ten St Legers – both of which he has won for the last three years! Oh yes, and throw in eleven Epsom Oaks successes, including last year.

The colossus that is the Coolmore breeding operation seems to be bucking the trend for raw speed though that is perhaps due to the ongoing search for a successor to the ‘daddy of them all` the almighty Galileo, now deceased. Sallies have been made into the Sales ring for a successor to Coolmore`s champions sire – a title the great stallion held every year from 2010 to 2020.

Not that O`Brien is averse to producing sprint champions. Of the pre-eminent Group One sprints, he has won the July Cup Sprint (Group One) five times though it must be said of those laureates only Starspangledbanner, sire of Gstaad and Precise among others, has achieved eminence as a stallion and Gstaad was a Sales purchase. And the master trainer hasn`t won the Group One Champion Sprint (formerly the Diadem Stakes) or the similarly endowed Nunthorpe Stakes this century. He has yet to win France`s champion sprint, the Prix de l`Abbaye (Gr 1).

The early trials for this year`s Newmarket Classics sifted dozens of O`Brien entries whittling them down to two in the One Thousand and in the colt`s Classic, the lone Gstaad, who cost them 450,000gns to purchase; plus an expensive entry fee for the Guineas and an even more expensive supplementary fee when he was withdrawn, mistakenly, at a forfeit stage. This spring has by no means been a one-way street of triumph for Coolmore: the trials for them had been barren territory.

That said Aidan O`Brien has four colts, Pierre Bonnard, Christmas Day and first and third in the final two-year-old Group One, the Futurity at Doncaster, Hawk Mountain and Christmas Day heading the betting for the £2m Epsom Derby on June 6th. In defeat the trainer quickly recovered with his customary sang froid after Gstaad`s downfall and was perfectly compensated by True Love under stable reserve jockey Wayne Lordan. She had been beaten by stable companion Gstaad at two, and at 4-1 On in another race. True Love had however been a trend bucking impressive Group 3 winner on her seasonal debut.

True Love`s sire No Nay Never`s reputation as a top-class source of juveniles and sprinters is not in doubt. Here on the Rowley Mile his Cheveley Park (Group 1) six furlongs winning daughter stayed the stiff Newmarket mile with aplomb. True Love`s dam Alluringly is a member of the impeccable illustrious line from the mare Urban Sea that produced Galileo and Sea The Stars, no less. Aristocratic Lady was just a decent performer on the flat, and stayed well. Her other two foals have not appeared in public – such is the part serendipity plays in breeding.

There were several absentees from the Two Thousand, notably the aforesaid sadly deceased Gewan, winter favourite after beating Gstaad and Distant Storm in the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes at two. But the way Bow Echo spread-eagled his field confirmed that the colt`s unbeaten record and the potential title of champion miler is not one he will surrender easily.

Like seven of the last eleven winners of the Two Thousand Guineas Bow Echo was making his seasonal debut and the trend is for high-profile two-year-old races to carry greater significance than the traditional early-season trials for three-year-olds. O`Brien does not ‘do` prep races with his serious Two Thousand Guineas contenders - all his record ten winners making their seasonal debuts.

No doubt we shall hear more of Gstaad in the coming months. He`d been last seen winning the Breeders` Cup Turf Juvenile, Grade 1, in California last November and is impeccably bred as half-brother to the Group 1 juvenile winner Vandeek. As the old saying goes Gstaad simply looks to have, in the shape of Bow Echo, “run into one” in the Guineas. Bow Echo`s previous finest hour was in the mile Royal Lodge (Group 2) his finale as a two-year-old. He took the race that delivers Guineas winners, Frankel being the most illustrious.

Frankel`s next stop after the Guineas was the mile of the St James`s Palace (Group 1) at Royal Ascot. It`s far too early to mention Bow Echo in the same breath as the non pareil but Bow Echo, echoing his great predecessor, will attempt to follow in Frankel`s footsteps.