Ben Linfoot considers the implications of Super Saturday, as City Of Troy dazzled in the Superlative Stakes while Shaquille won the July Cup.
City Of Troy has the world at his hooves
“If you didn’t get excited by that you don’t like horse racing,” said Racing TV’s Nick Luck, after City Of Troy had routed his rivals by over six lengths in the bet365 Superlative Stakes.
“I’d be surprised if we see a better two-year-old this year,” his comrade Martin Dixon added, trying just a little to suppress the excitement.
But it’s no wonder the, ahem, superlatives were reached for. This was a staggering performance from a racehorse having just his second start, a Group 1 display in a Group 2 race.
The bookies go 3/1 at best for next spring’s 2000 Guineas. Now, we saw this year that things can go wrong in the season’s first Classic, unseasonal wet weather contributing to the downfall of not one but two Aidan O’Brien-trained hotpots.
Subsequent events suggest Auguste Rodin and Little Big Bear were the best two horses in the race, but they were 12th and 14th on the day.
Things can go wrong, obviously, which immediately comes to mind when you are looking at a 3/1 quote 10 months in advance.
But this City Of Troy. Wow. He looks a super racehorse.
Professional beforehand and silky smooth in the race, he settled beautifully in a prominent position and elegantly strode clear to destroy a good field in the style of something very special indeed.
“He’s exactly what John [Magnier] wanted Justify to have,” a visibly excited O’Brien said afterwards. “He’s true Classic bred.
“He has an unusual stride, temperament, ability. There are so many roads open to him.”
Indeed he does. And that pedigree, by a US Triple Crown winner out of a Galileo mare, makes those roads even more exciting.
Never mind the 2000 Guineas. Anybody got a price on the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Classic?
Should Shaquille go for the Nunthorpe?
The amazing Shaquille is racking up some C.V.
Hot on the heels of missing the break and winning the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot, he repeated the trick, to a slightly lesser extent, before a remarkable mid-race move enabled him to dominate the Pertemps Network July Cup.
It is so hard to make up ground in this race on the July Course, but he went from last to first four furlongs from home and still had enough in the tank to see out the race under a beaming Rossa Ryan, winning his first Group 1.
This was far from a vintage July Cup, but he had the first and second from last year’s Champions Sprint in second and third and he beat them with ease. Imagine what he could do if he breaks on terms?!
It sounds like the Betfair Sprint Cup at Haydock could be his next move, but that race is almost two months away and there’s a lovely Group 1 on the Knavesmire in between.
Julie Camacho won’t have to travel her pride and joy far from his Norton base in North Yorkshire to take in the Nunthorpe Stakes, but the five-furlong trip on such a quick course is the sticking point. So much so it doesn't sound like it's on the radar, with the Prix Maurice de Gheest, over six-and-a-half furlongs, a more likely August target.
However, we’re getting to the stage where you wouldn’t put anything past this horse and the speed he showed to take control of the July Cup screamed minimum trip.
He’s not in the Coolmore Wootton Bassett Nunthorpe Stakes, but he won north of £350,000 today and it costs £40,000 to supplement.
After this July Cup-winning performance, I’d be taking that option very seriously indeed.
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Super Saturday allows jockeys to share spoils
It’s hard to keep track of everything on Super Saturday – Master Of The Seas is back if you didn’t know – and the race planners get a bit of a kicking this time every year with so much good racing squashed into one afternoon.
Especially when we have two summer jumps meetings tomorrow and a weak Saturday next weekend, headed by the Weatherbys Super Sprint.
But one of the positives of the day is the fact that good prizes have to be shared around the weighing rooms.
Jefferson Smith (sounds like he went to Harrow, actually from France) had a big Saturday winner down at Ascot thanks to Richard Hannon’s The Big Board in the five-furlong heritage handicap, a punch of the air after the line showing just what it meant to him.
Greg Cheyne, a 46-year-old veteran from South Africa, with almost 2400 winners in his back pocket, had his highest profile UK winner to date thanks to Naomi Lapaglia in the Fillies’ Handicap.
And at York Frederick Larson had by far the biggest success of his fledgling career after edging out Astro King in a desperate finish to the John Smith’s Cup, proving himself proactive after Plan A – making the running – quickly went out of the window.
Even with premierisation next year York, Newmarket and Ascot will run alongside each other on Super Saturday, and while that will trigger the same old debate about fixture pile-ups it’s great news for some of the lower-profile jockeys.
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