Spotlight on the 2015 Champions Series Sprint stars

Sole Power gets up late to win the Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes at York. Image courtesy of Racingfotos.com.

SAS – the Special Air Service in the military, Shearer and Sutton for Premier League football, and in the sprint category of the 2014 British Champions Series it stood for Slade and Sole, the combined Powers that dominated the division, sharing four Group 1s between them. Slade is now enjoying the trappings of his success, at stud, but the gelded Sole Power is still living life in the fast lane at the age of eight, bagging another big one already this year, in Dubai.       

The only British Group 1 event last year which wasn’t subject to a Power sugre was the Sprint Cup at Haydock, where G Force announced his arrival on the big stage. Young, hungry and based in the North, he’s the embodiment of his trainer, rising star David O’Meara, and G will definitely be a Force in the sprint series again in 2015.

This is the division where the gap between high-end handicapper and Group 1 contender is shortest, and if any horse is going to cross that particular bridge this year then it’s Muthmir. On Timeform ratings, Muthmir is already classy enough to be playing in the big leagues, despite having been kept low-key so far, but 2015 is his coming-of-age campaign.

The championship has a different dimension this year with the advent of the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot, the final piece in the sprint series jigsaw, as it gives a chance for the three-year-olds to shine before they have to face their streetwise elders. It’s music to the ears of Limato and Tiggy Wiggy, the Timeform top-rated colt and filly of the juvenile class of 2014 and both crack sprinters in the making.

Anthem Alexander, who beat Tiggy Wiggy in the Queen Mary at Royal Ascot, is another sprinting string to the blue-streak bow for Eddie Lynam, the man behind the Powers, and keep an eye on Moviesta, a potential left-field flyer now that he’s joined the sprint king’s stable.

Add in the international element, with the series always drawing speedballs from around the world (Australian trailblazer Brazen Beau is already pencilled in for Royal Ascot), and we’ve got all the ingredients for a classic sprinting season.