Haatem threw down his hat into the ring with a victory in the bet365 Craven Stakes at Newmarket, and he might be joining respected stablemate Rosallion in the Qipco 2000 Guineas next month.
With only the undefeated and highly regarded City of Troy ahead of him in ante-post lists, Rosallion is very much Richard Hannon's first string for the season's opening Classic on May 4. Rosallion won three of his four juvenile starts, including the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere on Arc weekend at Paris Longchamp
Haatem had a busy two-year-old campaign, winning the Vintage Stakes at Goodwood and placing second and fifth in the Superlative and Dewhurst Stakes, respectively, but he appeared more vulnerable than most before making his three-year-old debut.
In one of the most important Guineas trials, Haatem made his comeback and made his tenth career start. Sean Levey sent him off at 17-2, but he quickly recovered, racing out of the dip to lead Dewhurst to third place by three and a half lengths.
“The way he did it has surprised me, but you can’t say that was a fluke. He’s obviously improved a lot physically – he’s a big, strong, impressive horse,” said Hannon. He’s a good horse and he’s just won a Craven by three and a half lengths. He won a Vintage Stakes with the subsequent Champagne Stakes winner behind him and he was fifth in a Dewhurst. Funnily enough, I said to Sean after the last race I thought he’d get the trip well and it seems the horses who have been making the running all week have been winning and have been hard to peg back. I know he didn’t do the running, but I don’t think you can say that is an average performance, he was pretty good there.”
For the 2000 Guineas, Coral lowered Haatem from 66-1 to 25-1, with Aidan O'Brien's City of Troy as their 4-6 favourite and Rosallion ranking his greatest threat at 5-1. Paddy Power and Betfair give Haatem a 20-1 chance.
While Hannon is prepared to let both of his pairings play at Newmarket the following month, he did provide Haatem with a few possible substitutes.
He said: “This is the racecourse and this is where it matters and on what he has done today, the 25-1 on offer for the 2000 Guineas could be generous to me. Rosallion is a horse that contains an awful lot of speed, whereas this is a horse that gets the trip extremely well. Rosallion will get the mile and they will both probably run (in the Guineas).”