Cockney Rebel - Vintage 2000 Guineas
June 4, 2007 by The Duke
Filed under Speed Ratings
Having been visually impressed by this year’s winner of the 2000 Guineas, Cockney Rebel duly put in a noteworthy performance on the clock. Named after a rock band headed by Steve Harley in the early seventies, Cockney Rebel has gone a long way to confirm the ability his trainer Geoff Huffer always believed he possessed.
Below are the ratings I’ve awarded the last ten winners of the 2000 Guineas.
102.29 Entrepreneur
101.47 Haafhd
100.82 Cockney Rebel
100.35 King Of Kings
99.69 King’s Best
99.35 Golan
97.35 Refuse To Bend
96.88 George Washington
96.05 Rock Of Gibraltar
95.76 Footstepsinthesand
93.11 Island Sands
From the above you can see that Island Sands posted the most disappointing performance of the lot and to be honest didn’t do anything after that shock win so that looks about right.
Entrepreneur is the one which looks most corrupt, as it could be that all of the remaining races on that card when he won his Guineas were slowly run, and made him out to look better than his performance actually was. We can’t really find out how good he could have been as he only raced twice after that disappointing both times in the Derby and the QEII.
Footstepsinthesand is an unknown quantity as he hasn’t run since but I don’t think he was as good as people made out and was retired with his stud value in mind, and as for Rock Of Gibraltar the slow early pace looked to be the reason why he posted such a low rating, and is value for a further couple of points on my scale.
Therefore Cockney Rebel is up there with the very best, and should take his fair share of the Group 1 pie this year and the likes of George Washington need to really lookout for the younger brigade, as this certainly looks like a golden crop of three-year-olds.
As for the fastest times, Cockney Rebel comes out as the third fastest Guineas ever.
1994 - Mister Baileys - 1m: 35.08
1995 - Pennekamp - 1m: 35.16
2007 - Cockney Rebel - 1m: 35.28
1993 - Zafonic - 1m: 35.32
There are some big names which are there, and there are some even bigger names which aren’t on the list. A few examples are Rock Of Gibraltar, Nashwan, Dancing Brave and Brigadier Gerard just to name a few.
However I can only sit here and wonder what kind of time would have been clocked if both Teofilo and Holy Roman Emperor contested in this race, and that we’ll never know.
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