Ratings Update: Gewan tops juvenile standings

Gewan earned a Timeform rating of 118 (from 108), which equals the figure subsequent 2000 Guineas winner Chaldean, who was also trained by Andrew Balding, achieved for winning the Dewhurst in 2022.

The colt has followed the same path as Chaldean, contesting the Acomb, Champagne and Dewhurst Stakes after winning the same Newbury novice in July. Like Chaldean, who was the 7/2 favourite when winning the 2000 Guineas, Gewan deserves to be considered a leading classic contender.

Timeform handicapper Simon Baker said: "Gewan showed form well up to standard for the Dewhurst - if below the level achieved by superior recent winners City of Troy, Pinatubo and Too Darn Hot - and the fact the top three in the betting completed the frame in the same order suggests there's substance to the form. The form is underpinned by the timefigure, which was the best by a juvenile this season.

"Gewan had been looking potentially high-class prior to his Champagne Stakes disappointment and it's perhaps significant that he was notably more relaxed in the preliminaries this time compared to Doncaster.

"He'll stay a mile and, with little reason to think he won't train on, enters winter quarters as a leading 2000 Guineas contender, his path so far almost identical to that followed by his stable's 2023 Guineas winner Chaldean."

Meanwhile, Precise has been awarded a Timeform rating of 113p for her Fillies' Mile victory on Friday but, while she was impressive, that’s short of what the best recent winners, Desert Flower (118) and Minding (121), achieved at Newmarket.

Baker said of her: "Aidan O’Brien tightened his stranglehold on the division by winning a third Group 1 for two-year-old fillies inside two weeks, and Precise’s win in the Fillies’ Mile looks a superior effort to those that saw True Love win the Cheveley Park and Diamond Necklace the Marcel Boussac.

"There are only a few pounds in it either way, though, and with big-priced runners completing the placings, it’s hard to rate this as a vintage Fillies’ Mile, allowing that Precise won it with her ears pricked, looking value for at least another length.

"Even factoring that in, her performance falls a little short of those achieved by other wide-margin Fillies’ Mile winners of recent years, such as the 2024 winner Desert Flower and Precise’s illustrious Ballydoyle predecessor Minding.

"Those two fillies were both short-priced winners of the 1000 Guineas the following spring, but Precise isn’t so far ahead of her contemporaries, with the principal opposition coming from within her own formidable stable. Indeed, the unbeaten Marcel Boussac winner Diamond Necklace might just trump Precise for potential, with three races under her belt to Precise’s five and a pedigree that more obviously lends itself to middle distances."