‘Eccentric’ possibilities for Limato after impressing in July Cup at Newmarket

Limato starred on Saturday in the Group 1 1200-metre July Cup, opening the possibilities for the sprinter to try longer lengths, writes Geoffrey Riddle.

Harry Bentley riding Limato celebrates winning the July Cup at Newmarket Racecourse on Saturday. Alan Crowhurst / Getty Images / July 9, 2016

NEWMARKET // Limato laid down the gauntlet to the best 1,200-metre sprinters in the world on Saturday with a devastating performance in the July Cup.

Ridden by Meydan regular Harry Bentley, the four-year-old gelding powered two lengths clear of Suedois and Commonwealth Cup winner Quiet Reflection, with King’s Stand Stakes winner Profitable trailing in his wake over another length back in fourth.

The margin of victory could have been much more, too, with Bentley having to take evasive action with his riding crop in the final 100 metres after his mount veered halfway across this most picturesque of racecourses.

Limato’s victory doffed a cap to last year’s winner Muhaarar, Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid’s now-retired sprinter who beat Limato hollow at Royal Ascot last year.

Limato had made his seasonal reappearance when fourth in the Lockinge Stakes over 1,600 metres on unsuitably soft ground in May and the question of whether he would return to that distance in the Sussex Stakes at the end of the month haunted the winner’s enclosure like a spectre.

For Henry Candy, the 71-year-old trainer who has been trying to win this race for 42 years, the appeal of a £1 million (Dh4.7m) showdown with English Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes winner Galileo Gold was something beguiling. So, too, was the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita in November.

“I think he gets a mile, which is pretty extraordinary given how he won that race,” he said. “We could go to Deauville (for the Prix Maurice de Gheest on August 7), or be truly eccentric and try a mile.

“It would be rather fun to run in the Sussex.”

Bentley has picked up a double of local Group 1 wins when riding during the winter in Qatar, but this was his first top-level success in an international race in Britain.

He, too, thought Limato was worth another try over further.

“I think he does stay and it would be hard to write off his Newbury run,” he said. “It was his first run of the season and the ground was softer than ideal and he ran a great race in defeat. It will be a competitive race with the likes of Galileo Gold.”

Meydan runners Sole Power and Jungle Cat were eighth and fifteenth respectively, with Jungle Cat a disappointment for Charlie Appleby, who had saddled the impressive Boynton to win the Group 2 Superlative Stakes 35 minutes previously.

Boyton’s win caps a fine week for Godolphin two-year-olds after Easy Victory and Dubai Hero scored in the royal blue silks on the first two days of the meeting.

Charlie Appleby revealed that Boynton could head to Ireland for the National Stakes next.

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