City Of Troy seeks to live up to the hype and comparisons with wonder horse Frankel by claiming a statement victory in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket

Fans watch hundreds of races every year, tens of thousands over a lifetime, but only a few performances are etched into the memory.

Maybe it is because of an emotional attachment to a winner. More likely a few precious seconds get frozen in time because they were something extraordinary.

That is what the spectators heading to Newmarket hope to witness with City Of Troy in the Qipco 2,000 Guineas.

All the Aidan O’Brien-trained odds-on favourite has to do is win, even if it is just by a nose. But, let us be honest, deep down what is needed is a statement victory — one which will stand comparison with Frankel’s six-length success in 2012 or Tudor Minstrel’s record eight-length win in 1947.

The hype surrounding Ryan Moore’s mount demands such a performance.

In decisively winning his three races as a two-year-old, City Of Troy was acclaimed by O’Brien as the most exciting two-year-old he had ever trained.

The man with a record 10 2,000 Guineas winners can be fairly liberal when spraying around the superlatives to describe his horses, but City Of Troy backed up the opinions with performances.

When international handicappers published their figure assessing the 2023 two-year-olds, City Of Troy was given a rating of 125, only 1lb behind that achieved by the great Frankel after his debut season.

After City Of Troy had beaten opponent Alyanaabi by three and a half lengths in the Dewhurst Stakes with two other of Saturday's rivals — Haatem (fifth) and Iberian (sixth) — behind him, part-owner Michael Tabor said: ‘He really is our Frankel. No question he is the real deal.’

O’Brien spoke of City Of Troy as a horse that had not yet been extended, adding: ‘I have never had anything like him. I’ve never had a horse that never gets tired. We usually push them to the limit but we don’t know his limit.’

After a drama-free winter and smooth preparation, that confidence remains solidly intact. It seems significant that O’Brien runs only City Of Troy, despite having a clutch of horses good enough to take part.

That is rare for O’Brien. Even when he won the 2,000 Guineas with what are regarded as above-average Classic performers, he played more than one card.

This is the first time he has had a single 2,000 Guineas runner since he ran unplaced Roderic O’Connor behind Frankel in 2011.

If he wins today, the Derby on June 1 will be the next stop for City Of Troy, whose sire is the 2018 US Triple Crown winner Justify. Those genes mean there has been mention of sending City Of Troy to run in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga to chance his arm on a North American Dirt track.

If that worked out, breeders on both sides of the Atlantic would be clamouring to send their mares to him and his value would spiral into the stratosphere. But first City Of Troy has to clear this first hurdle and 2,000 Guineas history is littered with horses who arrived at Newmarket as the best thing since sliced bread and ended up as toast.

His rivals maybe in the shadows but, on paper, it looks to be a deep line-up for the first Classic of the Flat season.

Richard Hannon thinks the world of Rosallion, although his chance was not helped by Friday’s rain. Notable Speech has looked special, even though he has to step up on his three all-weather runs, while outsider Inisherin represents a stable who had runners-up at 125-1 and 150-1 in recent years.

In addition, an outstanding two-year-old does not also translate to the three-year-old season.

Remember Apalachee, trained by Vincent O’Brien and ridden by Lester Piggott, who was 4-9 favourite in 1974 but never ran again after he finished third.

Celtic Swing, 4-5 in 1995, went down by a head, while Xaar, 10-11 in 1998, was fourth.

Then there was O’Brien’s Air Force Blue. He was sent off 4-5 in 2016 after a two-year-old season in which he had won the Dewhurst Stakes by three-and-a-quarter lengths.

He had a physique suggesting he should thrive as a three-year-old but he beat only one rival home as he finished 15 lengths behind the winner, Galileo Gold.

Funnily enough, O’Brien had hailed Air Force Blue as the best two-year-old that he had ever trained.

Then there was last year’s Derby winner, Auguste Rodin. He was 13-8 for the 2,000 Guineas but beat just two home.

It just goes to shows that you cannot count your chickens before the 2,000 Guineas, but it will be a major shock if O’Brien has got his sums wrong with City Of Troy.