In many ways this was visually a mirror image of Bow Echo’s victory on Saturday, with the strong travelling winner on the stands side of the field making a move with a couple of furlongs to run and ultimately asserting on the climb out of the dip. True Love certainly had the best late speed figure in the field at 37.66 mph and was good value for her winning margin. However, whilst I would almost certainly have to say that Bow Echo was the better winner of the pair, I do think there is a case to be made that the 1,000 Guineas had slightly more depth to it, or at the very least a smaller gulf in class between the winner and some of the beaten horses. True Love recorded a run-out speed of 33.29 mph, but that ranked just 4th. We can allow for the fact that Wayne Lordan had the race won and as a result wasn’t riding out with the same degree of effort as those chasing some of the placed finishes in behind him, but it would offer a little bit of hope to the likes of Touleen and The Prettiest Star who ranked highly for that metric. True Love was undoubtedly the best filly in the field, especially in the latter half of the contest where she recorded the fastest individual split for each of the final 3 furlongs. Those splits included a 10.93s time for the 6th furlong, one of just two points in the contest that any of the runners dipped below the 11s line. She did have the benefit of a run this season on her side, but so did Evolutionist (2nd) who came into this race on the back of a battling display in the G3 Prix de la Grotte at Paris Longchamp in April where she closed with furlong splits of 10.66 and 11.52s. Venetian Lace was an honourable 3rd on her return and brought G1 form into the contest, having chased home the winner’s stablemate in the Fillies’ Mile last October.

I think this was a very good renewal of the 1,000 Guineas and it was won by a very talented 3-year-old filly. However, in the colts race there was a yawning gap between the first 2 and the rest of the field, whereas in this race it was much smaller and I can make a case for plenty of the beaten horses improving next time. Precise is a good case in point. She has clearly not had the easiest route to this race and we have no idea how fit she may or may not have been on her first start of the year, especially after a well discussed setback in her preparations. Despite this, she was one of only 2 runners in the race to record a top speed figure above 41 mph (41.15 mph) and the other one was her winning stablemate. She is proven at this level and a winner over this course and distance at group 1 level as a juvenile, so that might be expected, but she clocked 10.98s for the 6th furlong before she tired in the latter stages. The 6th furlong was the point where True Love quickened to win the race, but whilst her 10.93s time is eye-catching, there were 8 other runners who got within 0.25s of that split time as well as 6 more who were able to get within the same distance of True Love’s 11.22s for the penultimate furlong. On quick ground, we are still discussing margins in lengths rather than centimetres, but in a field spread across the track there are some reasons for optimism for the beaten connections.

I signed off the review of the 2,000 Guineas by saying that it would take an exceptional performance to beat Bow Echo over a mile this season. The same would have to be applied to True Love, but I do think there is a better chance of one of the beaten horses in the 1,000 Guineas being able to do so than their counterparts in the colts race.