32RED SPRINT CUP STAKES (GROUP 1)

IT rained again at Haydock last week and, unsurprisingly, the ground was declared heavy where other courses might have been no worse than soft.

It was testing enough for trainer Clive Cox to walk the six-furlong straight beforehand to check that 2/1 favourite Harry Angel would not be too inconvenienced in the Group 1 32Red Sprint Cup. He need not have worried because his brilliant sprinter was quickly away and made all to beat Tasleet by four lengths, with The Tin Man and Blue Point third and fourth.

Harry Angel, by Dark Angel, had won the July Cup at Newmarket on totally contrasting ground. He can quicken from the front, finds plenty as soon as Adam Kirby stokes him up and will take all the beating wherever he goes next. The Sprint on Champions Day at Ascot may well be his next target and if he wins that he will become the first horse to achieve the July Cup, Sprint Cup and Champions Sprint since the last-named contest was inaugurated in 2011.

“He’s so potent,” Cox said. “He’s awesome. Even on ground like that he’s lengthened away from them and to beat them by four lengths is wonderful. There’s a possibility he’ll stay in training next year, too, and that would be very exciting. You want to look after the horse and it would have been easier to take him out today, but all credit to Godolphin because they wanted him to take that leap into the unknown and he’s repaid them.”

If there was a disappointment on Saturday it was Brando, who put up a career best in the Prix Maurice de Gheest at Deauville but he was never a threat here. His trainer Kevin Ryan was at a loss to explain the poor run and alluded that the five-year-old “just didn’t turn up on the day.”

The day was not totally lost for Ryan and Tom Eaves as they combined to win the opening fillies handicap with 9/1 shot Company Asset, who ran out an impressive six-length winner.