Betfair Sprint Cup Stakes (G1)
Haydock Park - 5th September 2026
The sprinting division can, at times, be a very difficult puzzle to solve. If you take a look through the recent history of the Group 1 races over the shortest trips in recent years, it might create the impression that the winners have simply been taking it in turns. That’s perhaps a little harsh, but circumstances, the draw and a lot of luck in running have certainly played their part in what would appear to be a relatively random set of results. However, that is starting to change. Bacio was clearly thrown in on a mark of 100 when he dominated a Royal Ascot handicap, but he backed that up in the Nunthorpe at York last month and on Saturday, it was the turn of another Royal Ascot winner to confirm the strength of his earlier form. Even if we allow for the softer underfoot conditions, and a winning time of 1:15.00 for the 6 furlong course at Haydock would certainly fit a “Soft” ground description, with that time around 2s outside of the expected time on the TPD database. The fact that ALMERAQ was able to win this Group 1 race by over 4 lengths speaks volumes about his ability and he has now confirmed himself to be the best horse around over this 6 furlong trip.
I started my analysis of this performance by looking back at the recent results over the 6 furlong course at Haydock when the going included the words Soft or Heavy. As you can see from the data summary above, Almeraq’s average speed figure of 36.0 mph is the fastest by any winner in that time and by some distance. That may well have been expected given that this was a Group 1 race, but it also shows how well Almeraq did to travel through this race with such authority. As might be expected from such a dominant performance, Almeraq ranked 1st for all of our in-race metrics and a late speed figure of 35.41 mph, measured over the final 2 furlongs of the race, was more than 3% quicker than anything else. A low draw in stall 4 could have been problematic, but Tom Marquand clearly had a plan to allow the race to develop in front of him and despite being one of the slowest horses to reach 30 mph, Almeraq was always ideally placed. Slowly switched towards the stands side rail, Almeraq was within a quarter of a second of the lead and as those in front of him began to tire, William Haggas’ charge eased to the front.
I couldn’t find too many excuses for his below par effort in the July Cup at Newmarket. The only case that I could make is that racing in a more prominent position with daylight in front of him did seem to light up Almeraq at an early stage. It’s almost certainly not a coincidence that both his Group 1 successes have come when he has had plenty of cover and been given time to settle into the race. With a minimum average stride frequency figure of 2.27 per second, he appeared to relax far better than most and that clearly helped him to get home in the soft ground. When asked, he was able to lengthen his stride with relative ease, increasing to a peak average stride length of 24.72 ft from a race average of 23.47 ft. That’s an increase of 1.25 ft (5.3%) compared to increases of 0.77 ft (3.1%) and 0.92 ft (4.1%) from Paborus and Big Mojo who both struggled to chase him home. He found a similarly impressive increase of 4.8% when winning the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Royal Ascot and under these circumstances with a pace to track and cover to help him settle, he is likely to continue to prove to be hard to beat.
I am sure that there will be some doubts about this form. In a field of just 8 runners, with some question marks about the strength of the opposition and a wide margin winner, it would be very easy to put a question mark next to this piece of form. All of those are valid points and I could certainly make a case that the stride data recorded for the runner-up, Paborus, would suggest that he may struggle to find the necessary speed for this shorter trip. However, even allowing for that, this was a superb performance from Almeraq and given what happened at York last season, he has produced a remarkable 4-year-old campaign since making his return. Strong travelling, ground versatile and still improving, there is so much to like about this Dark Angel colt and in a division that has been hard to work out at times, he has now confirmed his status as the horse to beat.