Can unlucky Bradsell now dominate sprinting scene after his comeback Nunthorpe success?

It was difficult to look unruffled at windy York on Friday, but Archie Watson somehow managed it after watching his Bradsell storm to his second Group 1 victory, this time in the Coolmore Wootton Bassett Nunthorpe Stakes.

Hands in pockets, hair in place despite the still-strong breeze that had swept through the Knavesmire all day, the Upper Lambourn trainer was taking it all in his stride. A third European Group 1 for him, after Bradsell and Glen Shiel’s previous successes, a cool £283,550 in the winning kitty, and all from a horse that has twice defied serious injury to make it back to the very top.

August 6, 2022. Bradsell breaks a tibia jumping out of the stalls in the Group 1 Keeneland Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh, prematurely ending a juvenile campaign that had already delivered so much thanks to a Coventry Stakes win at Royal Ascot.

Off the track for 270 days, Watson nursed him back to health and he won the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot from the highly talented Highfield Princess. Job done.

After that he was third in last year’s Nunthorpe, drawn on the wrong side (how the tables turned today), before he went to Ireland for the Flying Five where he finished seventh.

“Nothing came to light after that,” Watson said. “It was a very strange race, even horses like Highfield Princess and Art Power ran badly that day.”

Then February, 2024. Bradsell fractures a fetlock when in training for Dubai in the spring.

“It has been a pretty amazing way back from there,” Watson says. “If you’d had told me then we’d be winning a Nunthorpe now I’d have said ‘don’t be stupid’. Immediately I thought we’d save him for a stallion job next year, so the fact that at every stage he’s passed these things with flying colours is amazing.

“The strange thing is he’s not a particularly fragile horse, he’s just been incredibly unlucky. Everybody, the vets, everybody has done a phenomenal job with this horse all the way along.”

Watson, though, can take plenty of the credit himself.

Back in full training for the second half of the campaign, Watson resisted the deep end at Glorious Goodwood and a King George Qatar Stakes that contained Nunthorpe rivals like Big Evs and Asfoora.

That challenge could wait, but Bradsell needed a run.

The Listed Prix du Cercle - Prix Hipodromo de la Gavea over five furlongs at Deauville on August 4 was identified and Bradsell won it, comfortably, by one-and-three-quarter lengths in good style.

Watson said: “I’ve never known him in better order than when he came back from France. We wouldn’t have had him fully geared up for it so it definitely brought him on, just to give us a bit of confidence.

“Goodwood was only a week before but I didn’t want to dive into a King George II, I just wanted to bob him in a non-Group 1 or Group 2 race before coming here.”

Clearly, it worked a treat. And while Bradsell has been unlucky with those injuries, perhaps the bad days are behind him now. Perhaps he can take a strong grip on the five-furlong sprinting scene.

We had Battaash and we had Highfield Princess, but no horse has taken on the baton since then. Bradsell, in this form, could be that horse.

“Let’s not overcomplicate it,” says Watson, thinking of his next move on the hoof.

“He’s a Group 1 winner and he loves all these five-furlong races, so all being well he’ll go to Ireland in three weeks’ time (for the Flying Five), France (for the Prix de l’Abbaye) is three weeks after that and then the Breeders’ Cup (for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint) is three weeks after that.

“They weren’t far behind us here, but it was frustrating watching Royal Ascot and those five-furlong races earlier in the season because I just felt they didn’t look of the same quality as when Bradsell and Highfield Princess were taking each other on last year.

“He is fresh and hopefully we can bounce into these races in the autumn.”

It’s a strand of the season to look forward to. Hollie Doyle, winning her 10th Group 1, could well enjoy more top-level success on this son of Tasleet who means so much to the Watson team.

The bare form may say this was no more than an average Nunthorpe won by a horse drawn on the right side of the track where the lightning pace was.

That may be true. But Bradsell must be made of stern stuff to come back from the injuries he has suffered and do this at the very highest level. Watch out this autumn, he could well do it again and again.

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