THE 2,000 Guineas favourite Teofilo came through his first serious workout since his recent well-documented setback with flying colours yesterday morning.

Ridden by his big-race jockey Kevin Manning, the unbeaten three-year-old covered six furlongs on Jim Bolger's wood-chip gallop. "He's at the top of his game, " said the Carlow-based trainer afterwards.

The son of Galileo, 9-4 market leader with Guineas sponsors Stan James, will have his final spin at speed on Wednesday, three days before 199th running of the Rowley Mile showpiece.

"We're very, very happy with him, " added Bolger. "He seems to have put his problems behind him which is really good news and we are all very pleased with him."

Teofilo, last year's champion juvenile is the latest to bear the burden of being a putative wonder horse and Saturday's first Classic of the season is the first step on a three-stop road with only the ghosts of hoofprints to follow. The last horse to win the Triple Crown . . . the Guineas, the Derby and the St Leger . . . was Nijinsky, 37 years ago.

The three races test very different aptitudes: the ability to win over a straight mile in the spring, over a switchback mile and a half in the summer and over a daunting mile and three-quarters in the autumn.

But the commercial constraints, tendency to specialisation, and competitive nature of the modern era mean that the opportunity for a horse to demonstrate such versatility at the highest level is rarely considered and even more infrequently achieved.

Nijinsky was not only the latest Triple Crown winner, but the most recent to try.

The last colt to win even two Classics was Nashwan, who bypassed a tilt at the St Leger in 1989.

But Bolger's hands are less tied than most trainers, for he also bred and owns Teofilo. "I'm something of a traditionalist, " he said, "and if he should win the Guineas and Derby, I'd certainly be game for the St Leger but we will have to see how things go because that's a long way off."

Teofilo's closest market rival, the Craven Stakeswinner Adagio, will work this morning in Newmarket. Yesterday, alongside the Rowley Mile racecourse, another horse recently under a cloud, Sander Camillo, galloped her way back into favour. The filly, who drifted in the 1,000 Guineas lists after suffering muscular cramps in the wake of her trial defeat, is second favourite again, behind Teofilo's stablemate Finsceal Beo.