The Middle Park on Friday will be a hot little contest if the main contenders run as enthusiastically as their trainers talked about them here. Charlie Appleby and Richard Hannon, who will field Blue Point and Mehmas in the Group One sprint, both made it to the winner’s enclosure during Thursday’s card and would acknowledge no weakness in their charges, while rumours swirled that Aidan O’Brien has a strong contender hitherto overlooked.
Appleby had the more to say and with good reason, since Blue Point is the 5-4 favourite for the Middle Park after bolting up in York’s Gimcrack last month. Mehmas came out on top by a neck when the pair clashed at Glorious Goodwood in July but Appleby shook his head impatiently when asked if that was a concern.
“I’m confident we’ll reverse the form,” the Godolphin trainer said. That defeat, in his view, was the result of Blue Point having won his first two starts so easily that he had learned, essentially, nothing about the art of racing. “Goodwood’s a track that you’ve got to have a bit of race experience, I feel,” he said. “It’s a quick six [furlongs], you come down the hill and hit the rising ground … unfortunately there wasn’t any pace there for us to get a lead.”
The plan at York was to track something else and even there it worked only to a limited extent, Blue Point racing on the wing of his rivals. “At least we had horses there to take us to the furlong pole,” Appleby said. “Hopefully on Saturday we can just get him covered up there and he’ll be able to show the acceleration that he showed in the Gimcrack.”
Hannon, meanwhile, pointed out Mehmas had been carrying 3lb more than Blue Point when coming out on top at Goodwood, whereas they will meet at level weights this time. “He’ll win or go close,” the Wiltshire trainer said.
But the Middle Park is by no means a duel, with eight other horses standing their ground at the final entry stage. Two of those come from O’Brien’s Ballydoyle yard that has already racked up a record‑breaking sum in prize money in Britain this season and it appears the pecking order between that pair is not so clear as had been imagined.
Intelligence Cross looked the obvious contender, having built on his third place behind Mehmas and Blue Point when landing a Group Three in Ireland last month. But when the jockey bookings were published, Ryan Moore’s name was next to Peace Envoy, which would normally suggest that he was the first-string runner. Seamie Heffernan rides Intelligence Cross.
The Irish bookmakers Paddy Power, who have sometimes claimed special knowledge of events inside Ballydoyle, reported they were “taken completely by surprise”. They shortened Peace Envoy to 10-1 from 16s and pushed Intelligence Cross to 8s from 6-1.
Coolmore’s British representative, Kevin Buckley, hoped both horses would prove worthy of their place in the field and pointed out Peace Envoy had been beaten only a length by Lady Aurelia in the Prix Morny when last seen, finishing best of all.
Godolphin, too, are double-handed in the Middle Park, fielding the outsider Silver Line alongside Blue Point. The grey is trained by Saeed bin Suroor, who caused a stir this week by demoting James Doyle from his position as the stable’s No1 jockey.
Doyle has ridden Silver Line in all three of his starts but will watch the Middle Park from the weighing room, his place in the saddle having been passed to Daniel Tudhope this time. Bin Suroor, who seems intent on experimenting with different jockeys, pointed out Tudhope had won a Listed prize for him at Ayr recently on Secret Number.
Doyle will have three rides at Newmarket on Friday but none of them is for his erstwhile boss and he will ride against two of Bin Suroor’s in the Cambridgeshire when getting the leg-up on Chris Wall’s First Sitting, a 25-1 shot.
