Betfair Sprint Cup memories: Dayjur v Royal Academy

None resonated more than the 1990 renewal and it's easy to see why. It featured arguably the greatest sprinter of modern times in Dayjur who beat Royal Academy down the Haydock straight.

The runner-up was short of room at a crucial stage and flew home but the winner had put the race to bed shortly after halfway and Willie Carson said he was looking after him inside the distance.

It was a race that had it all – and a remarkable postscript too as Royal Academy went to Belmont Park to provide Lester Piggott with an unthinkable comeback success in the Breeders’ Cup Mile.

On the same card Dayjur was about to defy a wide draw, a dirt surface and the best of the American sprinters only to twice jump shadows strides before the post in the Sprint.

It was a defeat that has gone down in folklore – as has their Haydock clash.

Ed Chamberlin said: “Pretty much all of us would have Dayjur as the best sprinter we’ve ever seen, he was absolutely spectacular and it was a helluva race that year with Royal Academy in there and the three-year-olds dominated in sharp contrast to the modern day.

“Dayjur was sensational – the mid-race speed when you watch it again is just extraordinary and he was a proper wow horse, what he went on to do, the headlines he made in America, what a racehorse.

“I’ve just read the book Horsetrader for the second time and this race plays a big part in it. It was Robert Sangster’s brainchild from a few years before, it was sponsored by Vernons Pools at one stage, and in 1990 a big part of the story was Royal Academy.

“He was the horse that Vincent O’Brien pretty much staked his reputation on. In America he paid $3.5million I think for Classic Thoroughbreds PLC which was a syndicate in Ireland set up to keep Vincent going and it didn’t go well.

“Royal Academy was their last big hope, and he came to Haydock to take on Dayjur and when you watch it again – deary me. If Dayjur was ever going to be beaten it was that day on softer ground than he ideally like and over six furlongs.

“My did John Reid and Royal Academy get into some trouble. He was on the rail then switched out and ran on in the most eyecatching fashion for the Breeders’ Cup Mile that you’ll ever, ever see,

“Look he could have finished closer. Would he have beaten Dayjur? I don’t think so but then the story just gets better from there with Lester, America and Vincent again at the very top. It was just an amazing race that year the Sprint Cup.”

Haydock is Graham Cunningham’s local track and the Sprint Cup his favourite Flat race there. 1990 will linger long in his memory.

“He just had breathtaking easy power, Dayjur,” he recalls. “It was like he was in second gear while other very good horses were flat to the boards. I remember after Haydock he went to the Abbaye and won it in great style but if only we’d known. In the last 100 yards of the race he was propping slightly, giving the impression he was looking at things and losing concentration.

“He then went on to the Breeders’ Cup Sprint and from a really, really wide draw ran a heroic race and had the prize in the bag until he jumped a shadow. He was clearly a horse very alert to everything going on around him.

“He and Safely Kept, a tremendous American sprinting filly, went head to head from the start, it was like a private duel, a knockdown, drag out fight, all the way up the straight and he had the better of her until that happened.

“Timeform rated him 137, he had a space age timefigure when he bolted up in the Nunthorpe. He was an astonishing horse and I still scratch my head and wonder how Jack Berry’s Tod managed to beat him in the spring of his three-year-old campaign!”

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