Greenham a possible starting point for Alyanaabi

Owen Burrows is considering the Greenham Stakes at Newbury as a potential stepping-stone to the Qipco 2000 Guineas for his exciting colt Alyanaabi.

The son of Too Darn Hot won two of his four starts as a juvenile, including the Group Three Tattersalls Stakes at Newmarket, and rounded off his campaign by finishing best of the rest behind star two-year-old City Of Troy in the Dewhurst in October.

While City Of Troy is odds-on to provide trainer Aidan O’Brien with an 11th victory in the season’s first Classic on the Rowley Mile, Alyanaabi is available at 25-1 and Burrows is keen to at least give him the opportunity to advertise his Guineas credentials this spring.

He said: “I’m very pleased with him, he’s done well (over the winter) and we’ve just started faster work with him, so all good.

“We might give him a run (in a Guineas trial), if he goes anywhere he’ll probably go to the Greenham at Newbury. It just sort of makes sense as it’s just up the road for us and luckily he had a couple of runs at Newmarket last year, so he handles the Rowley Mile well by the look of it.

“We’re a long way off and like most people, we’ve not been able to do much on the grass as yet. It would be nice for it to dry out a little bit so we can get a bit of work on the grass into him, but we’re happy that he might just go to Newbury and have a run before the Guineas.

“City Of Troy is the standout at the minute, but you can’t run away from one and we’d like to think that we’ll be up there with a few of the others, so we shall see.”

The Lambourn handler has also entered Futurity Trophy fourth Deira Mile for the 2000 Guineas, but his bid for Classic glory may have to wait until later in the year.

“I’ll be honest, I’ve got him in the English Derby and the French and the Irish (Derbys) and we’ve just put him in the Guineas in case for whatever reason he doesn’t stay,” Burrows added.

“I’d be amazed if he doesn’t because that’s all he did in the Futurity and obviously that was over a mile in heavy ground.

“The Guineas entry is just a speculative entry, but the owner was happy to cover all bases and he’s going to be treated like a Derby horse, who will start over a mile and a quarter at the beginning of April and then we’d be expecting to hopefully look at a Derby trial with him after that.”