WITH the 2000 Guineas just two weeks away, it’s time to put up an ante-post each-way alternative to the odds-on favourite Air Force Blue and it is the Peter Chapple-Hyam trained Marcel who gets the vote. The Oghill House Stud-bred son of Ballylinch resident Lawman won the Racing Post Trophy last season and that race received a significant collateral form boost in this week’s Craven.

Johannes Vermeer finished one and a half lengths second to Marcel at Doncaster before landing the Criterium International at Saint-Cloud next time out. The runner-up on that occasion was none other than Stormy Antarctic, the horse who hacked up in Thursday’s Craven, beating Foundation who was last seen some four lengths behind Marcel in the Racing Post Trophy.