Shaquille tries to snag another Group 1 in July Cup

Shaquille gave Julie Camacho the first Group 1 win of her career when he captured the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot and is the early favorite to provide the trainer with her second on Saturday at Newmarket in the July Cup.

Shaquille beat 12 fellow 3-year-olds going a straight six furlongs over good to firm going at Ascot winning the Commonwealth last month and will have eight rivals, including older horses, going a straight six furlongs over ground termed good to firm as of Thursday.

Shaquille and the Commonwealth runner-up, Little Big Bear, get six pounds from the older horses and three from the two females in the race, Azure Blue and Vadream.

Little Big Bear, Europe’s fastest 2-year-old of 2022, was odds-on in the Commonwealth Cup, but Shaquille beat him by a solid 1 1/4 lengths, and it wasn’t even as close as that. Shaquille, making his Group 1 debut, reared at the start and badly compromised his chances, but he sustained a powerful run for more than three furlongs to bring his career mark to six wins from seven starts. Jockey Rossa Ryan never has ridden Shaquille in a race but picks up the very live mount Saturday.

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Little Big Bear simply will need to do better if he’s to reverse the form with Shaquille. The strapping Aidan O’Brien-trained colt was more physically mature than his juvenile rivals, some of whom have caught up by now. A 3-year-old hasn’t won this race the last three years but previously had won four of five July Cups.

Azure Blue, a 4-year-old filly, is on a four-race winning streak of her own and when last seen at York beat the top older female sprinter Highfield Princess. The leading older horse likely is Kinross, though he was only seventh at Royal Ascot behind July Cup foe Khadeem, an 80-1 shock winner of the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes.

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