Dante Stakes (Group 2)

The big question for the Dante is, will it produce an alternative to Camelot for the Derby?

The lazy answer is no it won’t. There is no three year old alive who can disrupt the ambitions of the favourite for Epsom, so the market tell’s us. Yet yesterday the Musidora put up a real genuine challenger for the Oaks in the shape of The Fugue. Why can’t the Dante do the same for the Derby? The race has a tremendous record when it comes to providing Derby winners, 9 in all with the last being Authorised in 2007. Workforce was second here in 2010. It’s also produced some serious top performers who haven’t won the Derby, the like’s of Cape Blanco and Sakhee, second to Sinndar at Epsom. This race has pedigree, 2012 will be no different.

Andrew Balding must be glad he resisted the ground at Chester and hung on to run here. His colt Bonfire will certainly have a much better chance of being ready for the Derby running here then slogging it out in a tough race last week where recovery time might have been doubled. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll win this but a good show on decent ground gives him every chance of making the gate at Epsom in his prime. There’s an awful lot to like about him. His two runs last year, especially when an unlucky third to French Fifteen in the Criterium International suggests he can suck the rarified air of Group 1 success.

The opposition here will put it up to him. Mandaean like Bonfire is a son of Manduro. He is already a Group 1 winner having won the Criterium De Saint-Cloud at the death of last season. He beat the filly Brocottes by 2 1/2 L though the value of the form is questionable as she doesn’t appear to have trained on in her two runs this year. Even so, having transferred from Andre Fabre he still represents Godolphin’s best opportunity this year of lifting the blue riband.

Ernest Hemingway could be anything. A 10 L winner of a Dundalk maiden in April tells us he is another talented son of Galileo. This will be his first test in reality and we’ll know more about him after post time.

Rodger Varian must believe he has a good colt on his hands in Ektihaam. Twice a winner from two starts before misfiring in the Dewhurst he returned to Newbury to win another conditions event by 5 L. The trainer pitches him in here for another crack at the big time.

The Guineas form is tested here with the sixth and seventh, Fencing and Ptolemaic. Not so sure their performances here will alter our view of the race or the winner but you’d have to wonder why the former is a 6/1 shot while the latter is 66/1 shot when only a 1/2 L separated them at Newmarket. Fencing may do what his stablemate did yesterday and improve well beyond what he did in the Guineas but so may Bryan Smart’s colt who punched above his weight behind Camelot.

Pedigree, this race has it.

It could well put a Bonfire to the Derby market.