On the grass courts of Wimbledon yesterday, youth prevailed over grizzled experience and it was the same on the lush turf of the July Course at Newmarket, where the three-year-old Harry Angel helped usher in a new order in the sprint division.
Spain’s 23-year-old Garbine Muguruza defeated five-time champion Venus Williams in the tennis and it was Harry Angel who upset the established order in the Darley July Cup when taking apart five-year-old Limato, last year’s winner who looked back to the sort of blistering form that made him such a force last season.
Harry Angel streaked clear of Limato to score by a length and quarter, and with fellow three-year-old Caravaggio running an indifferent race in fourth, it was left to outsider Brando to pick up third place.
Harry Angel had found Caravaggio too good at Royal Ascot when the pair clashed last month in the Commonwealth Cup, but with 22 days in between it was the Godolphin-owned colt who took the short turnaround the best on Sheikh Mohammed’s 68th birthday.
It was a second victory in the Group One contest for the jockey-trainer combination of Adam Kirby and Clive Cox after Lethal Force, who broke the track record in 2013, but judging by Kirby’s wide smiles a second bite tasted the sweeter.
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“He is a machine,” the rider said. “I think he is the best you’ll see for a long time — I truly believe that. He’s the best sprinter around.”
Kirby’s enthusiastic analysis needs to be taken with a pinch of salt because there is a long way to go this season. The July Cup has an established tradition of anointing the European sprint champion, however, and this was only the winner’s sixth career start.
Where horses used to be pitched into the Classics at the start of their three-year-old season with faint hopes of staying a mile, trainers now are focusing on a sprinting career as a destination, rather than an afterthought. We could be entering a golden age of the European sprinter because of it.
“Harry Angel was very fresh at Ascot and he never had a chance to get a blow in that day — he ran with the choke out,” Cox said. “He has settled more into his racing and with maturity he is becoming the finished article.
“This is a very good collection of sprinters and this one of the nicest July Cups I have seen.”
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Harry Angel is now in line to contest the 32Red Sprint Cup at Haydock on September 9, where Limato could also head, but a rematch with Caravaggio appears unlikely.
Caravaggio came out of the gates sluggishly under Ryan Moore and was settled towards the rear of the 10-runner field. Stable companion Intelligence Cross was rousted to the front under Padraig Beggy, but unlike at Royal Ascot when Kirby harried and harassed Harry Angel into going too fast, he found it easy to glide along at an even tempo on the front end.
Limato tracked the leaders under Harry Bentley, while Moore and Caravaggio raced just ahead of Brando and Tom Eaves at the back. With two furlongs to go at Royal Ascot, Caravaggio had passed his rivals as if they were a still life but this time the 10-11 favourite simply could not answer his jockey’s urgings.
When asked for his reaction, trainer Aidan O’Brien, said: “He was a little bit lethargic out of the gates and that left him a little on the back foot. I’m not making any excuses.”
O’Brien added that Caravaggio could contest the Nunthorpe Stakes at York next month, sponsored by Coolmore, and that the odyssey to Australia in October to contest The Everest, a new $AUS10m (£5.9m) six-furlong sprint, was also a “definite possible”.
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■Epsom Oaks winner Enable completed a Classic double with another scintillating display under Frankie Dettori in the Darley-sponsored Irish equivalent at The Curragh. The further Enable went the better she looked, and she passed the post five and a half lengths clear of Rain Goddess.
Asked about plans, John Gosden, the winning trainer, said: “The King George is an option. She’s in the Yorkshire Oaks and there’s the Arc de Triomphe.”