There must be few faster horses in the world right now than Bradsell and probably none who have rebounded so magnificently from life-threatening injury.
On Sunday (15 September) he will enhance that heroic profile if he again proves too quick for some of Europe’s top sprinters in the Flying Five Stakes (1000m), one of the four Group 1s from the Curragh’s World Pool feast.
A cannon bone fracture left Bradsell’s trainer Archie Watson – who sent out a Group 2 winner at Doncaster this Friday – simply hoping that this winner of Royal Ascot’s G2 Coventry Stakes (1200m) in 2022 and G1 King’s Stand Stakes (1000m) in 2023 would survive to be a stallion.
Instead, he returned from a 329-day recuperation to outclass his rivals in Listed company at Deauville with Hollie Doyle then partnering him to a victory that could be called a long way out in York’s G1 Nunthorpe Stakes (1000m) last month.
Arguably, Bradsell had a draw advantage especially as he was able to track speedball Ponntos in that 1000m dash unlike the fast-finishing Believing. Again, these two speed stars encounter each other from different sides, with Bradsell in 14 and Ryan Moore’s mount Believing leaving from stall one.
Believing thrives on racing, having finished in the first four in six top European sprints since early June including when Moore had booted her into a comfortable victory in the G2 Sapphire Stakes over this 1000m in July.
Harry Herbert runs the 20-strong syndicate that owns Believing and he says of the George Boughey-trained filly: “The stiff five furlongs at the Curragh – where she is proven – is right up her street so we hope that she can edge closer to that first Group 1 victory in the Flying Five. She so deserves to win a big one. She tries her heart out and is so consistent.”
Moss Tucker (Billy Lee) declared himself a Group 1 sprinter when winning this last year, and supporters will hope that the rain comes this time as it did then. He is one of the 18 declared Flying Five sprinters, 16 of whom will be angling to show that this is not a two-horse speed war between Bradsell and Believing.
Kyprios operates at the other end of the stamina scale but, like Bradsell, has overcome what had once seemed insurmountable physical issues. It will be widely expected that the world’s top stayer does again in the G1 Irish St. Leger (2800m) what he has done in 12 of his 16 starts and simply overpowers his opposition.
