The debate as to whether Saturday’s Group 1 July Cup winner Limato is good enough to take on the best in the world over 1,600 metres will rage on after trainer Henry Candy decided on Sunday to swerve the challenge of the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood at the end of the month.
Limato stepped down from finishing fourth in the 1,600-metre Lockinge Stakes at Newbury in May to put to the sword a field of six Group 1 winners in historically Europe’s strongest sprint.
Limato has a fierce temper and on return to Candy’s stables the four-year-old, gelded son of Tagula banged the top of his head and suffered a scrape near his eye.
With the £1million (Dh4.75m) Sussex Stakes at the end of the month adjudged to come too soon, Candy is eyeing up the 1,300-metre Prix Maurice De Gheest at Deauville on August 7, instead.
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All season Candy has tried to teach the headstrong and slightly balmy Limato to settle better in his races so he can use his searing turn of foot that settled the issue on Saturday better over further.
Candy is adamant that Limato can last home, and while jockey Harry Bentley agrees with him he is not quite as convinced. While the truth will have to wait, the outcry on social media at Candy’s continued belief in Limato’s staying qualities is merely a product of the lack of appetite for British trainers to experiment more with distance.
Australian trainers have a long history of stepping up horses. In recent times retired legendary sprinter Black Caviar won Group 1 races from 1000m to 1,400 metres, while rival Hay List won at the top level over 1,200m and 1,400m and slipped in a Group 2 success over 1,000 metres.
Lord Kanaloa, Japanese horse of the year in 2013, is the best example of Japanese buccaneering spirit. He won at the top level over 1,200 metres and stretched his elastic talent to beat 17 rivals in the 1,600-metre Group 1 Yasuda Kinen three years ago.
Candy worked for iconic Australian trainer Tommy Smith in the mid 1960s so clearly understands how these things work. The 71-year-old trainer has as his ultimate goal Santa Anita in November for the Breeders’ Cup Mile, a race famously won in 1986 by the previous year’s King Stand Stakes sprinter Last Tycoon.
When Limato won at Newbury, Candy’s stable was in the doldrums, and the going there was unsuitably soft. If Limato were a colt with a stud value to consider then things may well be different, but as he is quite a small gelding that does not have the hulking figure of a top sprinter, surely nobody can begrudge owner Paul Jacobs if he wants to roll the dice in some of the most lucrative mile races in the world that could suit?
One trainer who has benefited greatly from connections wishing to be adventurous is Kiaran McLaughlin in America. On Saturday night at Belmont Park he sent out Dubai World Cup runner-up Mubtaahij to finish third to Effinex and Samraat in the Suburban Handicap and Godolphin’s Marking to finish a narrow second to A. P. Indian in the Belmont Sprint Championship Stakes.
Mubtaahij ran a solid race on his first start since Meydan in March, although he would have finished closer than the margin of a length and a half had jockey Irad Ortiz not crossed from his outside position to the rail in the stretch.
Mubtaahij received 2kgs from Effinex, trained by Jimmy Jerkens, who became the first horse to win the Grade 2 contest consecutively since Devil His Due, who was saddled by Jerkens’ father, Allen.
Jerkens stated that the Grade 1 Whitney Handicap at Saratoga on August 6 was an option for Effinex. With McLaughlin aiming Godolphin’s Frosted at that race, Mubtaahij may have to wait for another target.
Elsewhere on the Belmont card, Deauville, owned by Jim and Fitri Hay, won the Belmont Derby Invitational Stakes for jockey Jamie Spencer and trainer Aidan O’Brien.
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