Guineas prep for Wow Trainer John Quinn is planning to give star juvenile The Wow Signal a prep race before going for Classic glory in the Qipco 2000 Guineas at Newmarket on May 2. After running away with an Ayr maiden on his racecourse debut last May, the son of Starspangledbanner went on to claim the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Prix Morny at Deauville during a tremendous summer campaign. His season ended disappointingly as he failed to fire in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at Longchamp in October, but Quinn is confident his charge will bounce back as a three-year-old. He said: "The Wow Signal had a nice break and then came back in after Christmas and is back cantering. He is a big, strong colt and is very enthusiastic. "The 2000 Guineas is his number one spring target and I think that it will be helpful to get a prep race into him beforehand, so he will probably go for the Craven Stakes or the Greenham. "I wouldn't want to make any major excuses (about his Longchamp performance), but when he came home afterwards he was a very tired colt who had clearly had enough, whereas after his Ascot and Deauville runs he bounced back straight away. "You never know when it's going to be a bridge too far and he had a very long hard year with a lot of travelling. If he had finished fourth or fifth one might think that was just as good as he is, but how he ran was clearly not his real form." Each of The Wow Signal's three victories to date have come over the sprint distance of six furlongs, but Quinn does not expect a step up to a mile to be a problem. "He should have every chance of staying a mile and he might stay further, although we will not be thinking about that until after the Guineas," Quinn said. "His sire, Starspangledbanner, was a tough sort who won at up to a mile and there is plenty of stamina on the dam's side of his pedigree. "Before his last run you would have said that he was screaming out for seven furlongs as he only got up in the last 50 yards in the Morny and he was going away at the finish in the Coventry. "People tend to dismiss horses very quickly after just one disappointing run and, at 25-1, I think he is a big price for the Guineas. "If he had not run at Longchamp he would be nowhere near those odds."
