York Friday preview: The Nunthorpe Stakes and Highfield Princess

By Tony McFadden

15:29 · FRI August 25, 2023

Tony McFadden sets the scene for Highfield Princess' defence of her Nunthorpe Stakes crown at York on Friday.

All Group 1s are important but there are a select few that define a division. For five-furlong sprinters that race is unequivocally the Nunthorpe.

The importance of the draw and the vagaries of the October weather can sometimes give Longchamp's Prix de l'Abbaye an unsatisfactory feel, while Ascot's stiff track means that in the King's Stand Stakes blistering pace is perhaps not rewarded as much as it should be in a top-level sprint contested over the minimum distance.

But at York, over the flat, five furlongs of the Knavesmire, there are rarely excuses. Speed is the most important asset and last year Highfield Princess, a mare who had spent much of her career competing over longer distances, showed bags of it on only her second start at five furlongs, impressively quickening two and a half lengths clear of her rivals after taking the eye with how well she travelled on the heels of the leaders.

That high-class display was backed up by another dominant victory in the Flying Five Stakes at the Curragh, where she completed a Group 1 hat-trick having kick-started the winning sequence in the Prix Maurice de Gheest only five weeks earlier.

Rarely has one horse taken such a grip on the sprint division; rarer still have they charted a similar path to the top as Highfield Princess, who was unsold at 29,000 guineas as a yearling and was beaten off a mark of just 57 on her handicap debut as a three-year-old.

This is a special mare, though not an infallible one, as a couple of defeats at Royal Ascot earlier in the season show.

Bradsell came out on top in the King's Stand, winning on merit for all he hung left and hampered Highfield Princess inside the furlong, and the pair will renew rivalry on the Knavesmire.

Bradsell's connections will be buoyed by the fact the three-year-old showed much-improved form to land the King's Stand on his first attempt at five furlongs. However, an even sharper test awaits at York, as is starkly demonstrated by comparing the time of last season's Nunthorpe (57.18s) to the latest King's Stand (1m0.91s).

After only six starts it's possible that Bradsell has not yet reached the ceiling of his ability, though he is not the most unexposed runner in the line-up as there's a fascinating two-year-old contender this time around in Big Evs.

You have to go back to 2007, when Kingsgate Native was competing during the first of the 10 seasons he would race, to find the last two-year-old winner of the Nunthorpe. However, only 12 juveniles have taken their chance since then and three of them have placed, so hardly cause for concern for fans of Big Evs, who already has a Windsor Castle and a Molecomb on his CV after three starts.

You can probably consider yourself a tad unlucky if you were on when he was only runner-up in a Redcar novice on debut!

Talking of unlucky, Twilight Calls should have finished third behind Bradsell and Highfield Princess in the King's Stand but endured a rough trip which proved costly. Attempting to steer a clear passage on Friday will be Frankie Dettori who is having his final ride in the Nunthorpe, a race he has won on three occasions and celebrated on four.

Lady Aurelia was agonisingly beaten on the bob in the 2017 Nunthorpe but that was still a top-class effort from a filly rated just outside the top 10 of her sex in Timeform's history. Highfield Princess isn't quite at that level but she looked at her brilliant best at Goodwood last time and has a 4 lb edge over her Nunthorpe rivals on Timeform's weight-adjusted ratings, so to put it bluntly, if she brings her A-game on Friday it will take a horse running faster than they ever have before to beat her.

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