Blast From The Past: Charity Sprint

York’s valuable six-furlong handicap for three-year-olds, the feature event of Saturday’s card, has been won by some top sprinters, or, more accurately, horses who went on to become top sprinters. Last year, for example, it went to Twilight Son who was next seen winning Haydock’s Sprint Cup. Third was Magical Memory who later won the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood before finishing third to Twilight Son again at Haydock, and the pair are set for another Group 1 clash in next week’s Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Further back in the Charity Sprint’s history, when it was run as the William Hill Golden Spurs Trophy on what used to be Timeform Charity Day, it was won three years apart by a couple of future champion sprinters, both trained by Alex Scott. Cadeaux Genereux carried just 8-5 to victory when justifying odds of 4/5 in 1988, and while he was disqualified after passing the post first in the Prix de l’Abbaye later that season, he went on to win two Group 1 sprints as a four-year-old when successful in the July Cup and the Nunthorpe Stakes, in the latter contest chased home by Silver Fling who’d also finished runner-up to him on Charity Day the year before.

Three years after Cadeaux Genereux, it was the turn of Sheikh Albadou, he too ridden by Pat Eddery. A seven-length win in a maiden at Pontefract on his reappearance already earned him comparisons with his former stablemate, and Sheikh Albadou followed that with a short-head defeat over seven furlongs in a decent handicap at York’s Dante meeting. This was how Racehorses described his next appearance:

‘Fifteen runners and £25,000 for a handicap should ensure a competitive race but not so with the latest running of the William Hill Golden Spurs Trophy at York. Sheikh Albadou’s departure from the ranks of handicappers was a stroll; looming up on the outside, he’d come to the front two furlongs out without being put under pressure, was asked to quicken clear and did so readily.’

Sent off the 9/4 favourite, Sheikh Albadou drew four lengths clear of the Frankie Dettori-ridden runner-up Adwick Park. Timeform’s description of the York race was necessarily brief because the rapidly improving Sheikh Albadou was destined for much greater things. Back on the Knavesmire later that summer, Sheikh Albadou dropped down to five furlongs for the first time to beat the two-year-old Paris House in the Nunthorpe Stakes. But the undoubted highlight of his season was his final start when he won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on dirt at Churchill Downs, a race in which his sire Green Desert had finished last five years earlier.

Sheikh Albadou remains the only European-trained winner of the Sprint, and, at the time, was just the third horse trained in Europe to have won any race at the Breeders’ Cup. He showed even better form as a four-year-old when winning the King’s Stand Stakes and Sprint Cup.