Samangan ruled out of 2000 Guineas outing There will be no French representation in Saturday’s Betfred 2000 Guineas after Francis-Henri Graffard’s Samangan was ruled out of a trip to Newmarket. A winner of three of his four starts at two, including a Chantilly Group Two on his final appearance last term, the son of Blue Point returned with an encouraging second in the Prix Djebel and was on course to make a raid on the Rowley Mile for the opening colts’ Classic of the year. However, he will not get the opportunity to add to Graffard’s growing CV after the trainer and the Aga Khan team decided to exercise caution following a less than perfect 24 hours. Nemone Routh, French racing manager for the Aga Khan Studs, said: “We weren’t 100 per cent pleased with his bloodwork this morning and we weren’t 100 per cent convinced after his work yesterday. It is nothing serious, but obviously going into a Classic you need to be 100 per cent. “After we got the bloodwork back this morning we made the decision not to run. “I don’t think it will keep him out for long and we’ve had a few similar examples. The filly who won yesterday (Zayida at Chantilly), we weren’t very happy with her first run a month ago and then she came right back to her normal form. “It’s nothing particularly serious, just at this moment he is not 100 per cent.”
