Racing: Wharf loaded with expectation

THE JULY meeting at Newmarket is the gathering of racegoers who feel the need to scratch their heads. Some are provoked by the devilish insects called thunderbugs that emerge from the trees; the rest by those devilish little men called bookmakers who emerge after the July Stakes with unrealistic prices for next year's 2,000 Guineas.

The horse to inspire puzzled countenances yesterday was Henry Cecil's Wharf, who went into the race with a singular home reputation and a single win, in a small race at this course, to his name.

Just over a minute later the colt added a hard-driven neck victory over Paul Kelleway's 66-1 chance, the maiden Canaska Star, to his record to make a package which Coral evaluated as deserving a

25-1 quote for the 2,000 Guineas.

In doing so, Wharf joined the band of seven co-favourites for the Classic and almost certainly the larger group of horses who have failed to go on from this race to victory over the Rowley Mile.

The history book shows that July Stakes winners do not win the 2,000 Guineas. Like Rock City, Green Desert and Superlative they are more likely to be thoroughbreds capable of an early starburst of form at two before maturing into specialist sprinters in their second season.

This statistic is probably known to Grant Pritchard-Gordon, the racing manager to Wharf's owner, Khalid Abdullah. After outlining the Richmond Stakes at Goodwood and Doncaster's Champagne Stakes as possible targets, Pritchard-Gordon said: 'I would like to think he was a 2,000 Guineas horse, but that's a long, long way away.'

The analysis by the colt's trainer contained the usual flurry of rhetorical questions. 'I thought it was a good, workmanlike effort, didn't you?' Cecil said. 'He's a nice horse, yeah?'

This theme had begun earlier, after the Warren Place trainer's United Kingdom had swamped 10 rivals. 'She has got this fourth gear, but you noticed that,' Cecil said.

The trainer expects good things from United Kingdom as long as he can protect her brittle structure. 'She's had problems all her life and has to swim every day,' he said. 'But with luck she will win a nice little race.' Steve Cauthen, the filly's jockey, felt himself capable of more effusion. 'I like her a lot, she's different class,' he said. 'She could win Group races.'

On an afternoon when Newmarket trainers captured six of the seven races, none was more delighted than Luca Cumani, who started the day in the unusual depths of 30th place in the championship. After Duke Of Eurolink's success, the Italian trainer greeted the approaching press posse in the winners' enclosure with the words 'long time no see'.

Cumani added that his Queen Anne Stakes runner-up, Second Set, was on course for Goodwood's Sussex Stakes at the end of the month, a race which may also draw yesterday's Falmouth Stakes winner, Gussy Marlowe.

Clive Brittain's filly had looked a burned-out beast in three previous efforts this season, but the trainer has always believed the ability was still there, dropping back in distance and conceiving new riding tactics from the back to unearth it yesterday. 'When you have that class it's just a question of bringing it out eventually,' he said.

In suggesting the Sussex Stakes as the next venture, Brittain left plenty of space for a rethink. 'Is that a firm possibility?' a questioner asked. 'Could be,' he said.

(Photograph omitted)