Traditionally the first Classic of the season, the 2,000 Guineas was founded by the Jockey Club, under the stewardship of Sir Charles Bunbury (previously of Derby fame), in 1809. Notwithstanding the 1999 renewal, which was transferred to the July Course during the redevelopment of the traditional Rowley Mile course, has been run at Newmarket, a.k.a. the ‘Home of Horseracing’, without interruption, ever since.
Granted that the 2,000 Guineas is contested, at least in theory, by the crème de la crème of the three-year-old generation, participants run off level weights, albeit that fillies receive a 5lb weight-for-sex allowance from their male counterparts. Colts carry 9st 0lb and fillies carry 8st 9lb. In other words, the 2,000 Guineas is a test of class, such that, while its position in the racing calendar – traditionally in early May – means that fitness, or lack of it, inevitably plays a part, long-priced winners are few and far between.
That said, the longest-priced winner in the history of the 2,000 Guineas was, in fact, the Rockefella colt Rockavon, who, in 1961, caused a major shock when beating 21 opponents by two lengths at odds of 66/1. Trained by George Boyd in Dunbar, East Lothian and ridden by Norman Stirk, Rockavon remains the only British Classic winner to be trained in Scotland. However, despite having ‘humbled the pride of England, Ireland and France’, at least according to the ‘Glasgow Herald’ of the day, Racing Post historian John Randall later took a rather dim view of the merit of his performance.
Randall described the field assembled for the 1961 2,000 Guineas as ‘abysmal by Classic standards’ and went still further, dismissing Rockavon as ‘the worst horse to win the race not only since 1945, but since Victorian times’. Granted that the places at Newmarket were filled by Prince Tudor and Time Greine, at 66/1 and 25/1, respectively and that Rockavon won just one more race – a match against the non-descript four-year-old Julia’s Hamlet in the Heddon Stakes at Newmarket – it’s difficult to argue with his opinion.