Guineas favourite tough to beat - but this 20-1 shot could give him most trouble

Saturday: 3.40 Newmarket
Qipco 2,000 Guineas (Group 1) | 1m | 3yo | ITV/RTV

After Native Trail won the Dewhurst, his price for the 2000 Guineas was 3-1. He is now around evens. What has happened in the meantime to in effect double his chances comes down to more than the absence of would-be rivals, or a routine win in the Craven Stakes 17 days ago.

The exact cause is hard to pin down, even though the same thing has happened to plenty of champion two-year-olds before Native Trail. It is as though absence of evidence is treated as evidence of absence, over-the-winter development is removed from calculations and those leading their cohort of two-year-olds in the autumn are assumed to stay there into the following spring.