Coolmore City Of Troy Nunthorpe Stakes (G1)
York - 21st August 2026
“I am struggling to think of a horse who could stay with him over the opening couple of furlongs and if he is in front at the end of the opening quarter of a mile, it seems very unlikely that anything will be able to overhaul him at this distance“.
Bacio. A horse so good that he can command a sentence by himself. Who’d be a handicapper? A mark of 100 for the Palace of Holyroodhouse Stakes at Royal Ascot was clearly a very large under estimate. He was in reality, almost impossible to assess, but if there were any doubts about the way the Ascot race may have played out and whether the track and the draw bias were significant, we can safely put a line through every single one of those doubts. On a softer surface at York on Friday afternoon, Bacio was sensational as he flew to the front with an opening furlong of 13.0s and from that moment on, he didn’t ever look like he was going to be headed. Horses don’t really win Group 1 sprints like that and Bacio’s average stride frequency figures of 2.57 strides per second was 6.6% higher than the expected average for a winner of this race. To put that into more basic terms, that means that Bacio was taking around 1.5 strides per furlong more than an average winner. He needed to do that because his average stride length of 22.76 ft was the shortest of the 18 runners in the field, but the ability to move his feet that quickly on a much softer surface than he encountered at Ascot, meant that he had most of this field in trouble at halfway.
US based jockeys have had mixed fortunes when riding in the UK in recent years, but this was brilliance in the saddle from Juan Hernandez. He simply let Bacio go, no thoughts of trying anything at all, he let Bacio gather his stride and held him together for as long as possible, even allowing himself a quick glance behind at the 2 furlong pole to see where the others were. Once shaken up, his mount found enough to get to the line and for all of Bacio’s perceived speed, it is worth noting that the only time he ran the fastest split in the field was for the first furlong and his top speed figure of 41.97 mph ranked only 12th. He has won 2 races in very impressive fashion, but he might actually be better around a bend and if he does go to the Breeders’ Cup and gets a reasonably low draw, he is probably going to prove to be unbeatable. His winning time of 59.42s was outside of our expected time figures for both “Good to Soft” and “Soft” conditions, but at Ascot he went more than a second under the expected time and his versatility is something that needs to be commended.
Clearly, Time for Sandals was unlucky in Friday’s race and she recorded faster individual furlongs in each of the last 4 splits and a better run-out speed than Bacio did. However, she has had 5 tries at the minimum trip without winning and if they met again, Bacio would almost certainly get another substantial head start. The sprint division can be very difficult to predict and a brief glance at the highest level European sprints in the last year would lead to the conclusion that the winners are taking it in turns. However, Bacio does not represent any of those form lines. He is trained by Wesley Ward and comes into this division as a refreshing change. The handicapper clearly missed at least 10 lbs off when he assessed him for the Ascot race, but having won the Palace of Holyroodhouse stakes with such ease, he has now dispatched the majority of the leading European sprinters with relative ease. He is a fast horse who will probably stay at the minimum trip throughout his career, but over 5 furlongs, I am struggling to think of a horse who could stay with him over the opening couple of furlongs and if he is in front at the end of the opening quarter of a mile, it seems very unlikely that anything will be able to overhaul him at this distance.