Who wins the July Cup?

Tomorrow brings us the final day of the Newmarket July Festival, with the feature race of the day being the July Cup at 16:35. It's a Group 1 6f race open to horses aged 3 years and above and is one of the most valuable and prestigious sprint races in the world with over £350,000 going to the winner. One of the biggest talking points is the £36,000 supplementation of Notable Speech who has only ever raced over a mile before. He’s the pick of William Buick over stable companion Symbol Of Honour (7/1), and is therefore well fancied in the market as the 5/2 favourite.

So let’s dive into some form. As we’d expect with such a competitive sprint, there are impressive overall strike rates all the way down the field. One which jumps out as below par is 2nd favourite Flora Of Bermuda (9/2), who has only won 2 of her 15 starts. This is the 2nd worst overall strike rate in the field, only ahead of 100/1 shot Twilight Calls.

As mentioned, Notable Speech is completely untested over the 6f trip and has only ever raced over a mile before. The standouts are 3 year old Symbol Of Honour, who has won 5 of his 6 starts over 6f, and at a bigger price, No Half Measures (50/1) who has won 3 of her 4 starts over the trip.

Most of the field have proven they can win on Good To Firm ground. However, there remains question marks on Flora Of Bermuda, Whistlejacket (5/1) and Night Raider (20/1) who have only managed to place on it so far.

However, Whistlejacket has got the job done at Newmarket before which importantly was on the July course at last year’s festival. This is some good form to have in the locker. Notable Speech is 1 from 1 at Newmarket when winning the 2000 Guineas last year. This was on the Rowley Mile and not the July track of tomorrow’s race, but it’s certainly better than nothing. A few of the bigger prices also have some course form which could be worth checking out.

As it’s a sprint, we always like to check out our Average Speed Analysis. This shows how fast each horse’s average speed was across its previous 4 races compared to the THM Standard Average for races run under those specific conditions. For example, Notable Speech’s average speed last time out was 0.84kph slower than the standard average for races run at Ascot on Good To Firm ground and over a mile.

By sorting on the the +/- to standard average column by fastest to slowest, we can see there are no major standouts, but top of the pile is Flora Of Bermuda who ran 1.34kph faster last time out. We can see there is some juicy prices knocking about at the top of this list.

Trainer Charlie Appleby has been absolutely flying at the Newmarket July Festival so far, and there's no surprises as his 12 month strike rate at the track is an impressive 32%. His two runners tomorrow are Notable Speech and Symbol Of Honour who both have great chances.