racing_news/

Stellar International Cast Among 30 for July Cup
23/06/11

Newmarket’s Piper Heidsieck July Festival is now just over a fortnight away and the countdown steps up a gear today with the publication of the latest entries going forward for the highlight of the three-day meeting, the Darley July Cup, which takes place over six furlongs on Saturday, 9th July.

The Group One event, which is being run on a Saturday for the first time in 2011, boasts a prize fund of £400,000 and forms the fourth leg in the Sprint division of the QIPCO British Champions Series. It is also the third British leg of the Global Sprint Challenge.

Monsieur Chevalier
© racing-images.co.uk

At Royal Ascot on 18th June, Society Rock stamped himself as a sprinter of the highest class when taking the Group One Golden Jubilee Stakes by half a length from Monsieur Chevalier. The duo could re-oppose at Newmarket on 9th July along with the third, fourth, fifth and sixth from the Royal Ascot contest - Australian raider Star Witness, Elzaam, Bated Breath and Amico Fritz.

Starspangledbanner handed a third Darley July Cup victory to trainer Aidan O’Brien in 2010 and this year the master of Ballydoyle has two to choose from - Zoffany, who beat all bar the mighty Frankel in the St James’s Palace Stakes over a mile at Royal Ascot, and Oracle. There are a further three Irish-trained contenders, notably last season’s Group One Nunthorpe Stakes winner Sole Power, who also landed the Group Two Temple Stakes at Haydock Park last month.

Other Group One winners who could contest this year's Darley July Cup include Markab, successful in the Group One Haydock Sprint Cup last September and the Sir Michael Stoute-trained Kingsgate Native, winner of the Nunthorpe Stakes in 2007 and the Golden Jubilee Stakes in 2008. Regal Parade has been a Group One winner in each of the past two seasons for Dandy Nicholls, having taken the Haydock Sprint Cup in 2009 and last season’s Prix Maurice de Gheest at Deauville.

Other interesting contenders going forward include the mare Laddies Poker Two, not seen out since taking the Wokingham Handicap at Royal Ascot in 2010, Dream Ahead, last year’s joint-champion two-year-old who finished fifth behind Frankel and Zoffany at Royal Ascot on his seasonal reappearance, and Godolphin’s Delegator, runner-up to the mighty Sea The Stars in the 2009 2000 Guineas and victorious in the six-furlong Group Two Duke Of York Stakes at York in May on his first start over that distance.

The 2011 Piper Heidsieck July Festival kicks off with Grand Arcade Ladies Day on Thursday, 7th July, a highlight of the East Anglian social calendar, when the feature race is the £80,000 Group Two Princess Of Wales's sportingbet.com Stakes over a mile and a half.

For further information and to book tickets, please visit www.newmarketracecourses.co.uk