John Quinn’s Liberty Beach lined up for top sprints

Having won four of her six starts as a juvenile, the daughter of Cable Bay made a successful three-year-old debut at Haydock earlier in the month to earn herself a ticket at the showpiece meeting.

While ultimately no match for the brilliant Battaash, Liberty Beach ran with huge credit under Jason Hart to finish third – beaten just a short-head to the runner-up spot by Equilateral – leaving her North Yorkshire-based trainer understandably proud.

Quinn said: “We were very pleased with how she ran, and she seems to have come home well. We’ll spend a bit of time in the long grass now, and see where we go from here.

“She was entitled to be there, but it was good to see her frank that entitlement, if you see what I mean. She ran a very good race behind a horse who is nearly unbeatable when he’s in that sort of form.”

Whether Liberty Beach will take on Battaash again in the King George Stakes at Glorious Goodwood – a race the Charlie Hills-trained superstar has already won on three occasions – is in some doubt, but they do appear likely to meet in the Group One Nunthorpe at York in August.

“She’s had two fairly quick runs now, so we’ll just see how she is,” added the Malton trainer.

“We’ll look at Goodwood, but Battaash is almost unbeatable there. We ran El Astronaute against him there last year, and he’s very quick – we gave Battaash a lead, but he went by us as if we were stood still.

“Our filly did win the Molecomb at Goodwood last year, so we’ll probably enter and make a decision closer to the time, but I’ll probably find something for her before then anyway. We’ve entered her in a race at the Curragh, so we’ll have a look at that.

“It would be nice to get one or two runs in and then go for the Nunthorpe at York, which is just down the road and would be a bit of a dream come true. Then the dream is we end up in Paris for the Abbaye in October – let’s hope we’re all able to go racing by then.

“That’s the sort of programme we’re looking at, but we’ve got to try to keep her right and happy, so we’ll see how it goes.”

The Nunthorpe, one of Europe’s top sprints, could also feature Kevin Ryan’s Hello Youmzain, who won the Group One Diamond Jubilee Stakes under an inspired Kevin Stott.

Though connections are sticking to six furlongs for now – next month’s July Cup at Newmarket is the immediate target – a drop back to five furlongs, the minimum trip, has not been ruled out.

“He jumped well and Kevin (Stott) did the right thing, let him find his stride and where he was happy, and when it came to the business end, he battled on hard,” said Ryan’s son and assistant Adam.

“He is a very game, very tough horse, and especially to do that on his first run of the season was very impressive. He did well over the winter; he strengthened up and matured again. We had him as well as we could have done at home – his work has been very good. We always thought this year he’d be more of the finished article.

“We will see how he comes back from this, but he’s a Group One sprinter and he will be tackling all of them. The July Cup is an obvious choice for his next run.

“He has a lot of natural speed as well, so I don’t think we’ll rule out dropping him down to five. He’ll probably get an entry in the Nunthorpe as well.”

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