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'Budapest Bullet' on Nunthorpe Trail
19/07/10

The prospect of one of the most exciting sprinting clashes for many a long year drew just a shade closer this week with the news that outstanding Hungarian sprinter Overdose is to return to the track and connections have set their sights on a clash with the flying Starspangledbanner in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York's Ebor fixture in mid-August, writes Elliot Slater.

Known throughout the horse race betting world as the 'Budapest Bullet', Overdose is unbeaten in all 12 career starts, including the voided 2008 Prix de l'Abbaye at Longchamp in which he crossed the line clear of a high class field. Absent for 15 months due to niggling injuries that forced him to miss a crucial stage of his career, the Zoltan Mikoczy- trained five-year-old is set to reappear in a listed sprint in Bratislava, Slovakia, after which, (if all goes well), he will be bang on course for a date with Aidan O'Brien's star ex-Australian sprinter who recently completed the Group 1 Golden Jubilee/July Cup double.

Overdose, a gelded son of the unfashionable stallion Starborough, really does epitomise the rags-to-riches dream of anyone who has ever owned a racehorse. Purchased by connections as a yearling at the 2006 Tattersalls November Sales for just 2000 guineas, he has dominated Central European racing for the last three years and is the first horse to put Hungary on the map as a racing nation.

A potential showdown, not only with Starspangledbanner, but with fellow multiple Group1 winner Equiano, dual Nunthorpe winner Borderlescott and last year's July Cup heroine Fleeting Spirit, would be the race that all racing fans and the betting online public would dearly love to see.

Let's hope that all the principals arrive at York in August in good form and gives us a race to savour.