Spectrum Update: Slade Power Wins Gr1 July Cup At Newmarket

Spectrum continues to make news overseas – where his Gr1 winning and now producing grandson, Dutch Art, is now having significant success with Slade Power – winning two Gr1’s on the trot.

Slade Power is Europe’s champion sprinter after a dominant performance in the July Cup to go with his impressive success in Royal Ascot’s Diamond Jubilee last month.

Alas, as is so often the case with Flat racers, a stud career is on the immediate horizon for Slade Power, the extent of whose talent has only recently been revealed. He will end his career in Australia’s VRC Sprint, part of the Melbourne Cup festival in November, and the only question is whether he will take in Haydock’s Sprint Cup in September on the way.

Eddie Lynam, his Meath-based trainer, was humming and hawing over the issue in the winner’s enclosure. Four months, he feels, is a long time to wait for one last hurrah but he described the Haydock race as no more than “a maybe”, because Australia is the number one target after last week’s deal in which his breeding rights were sold to Sheikh Mohammed, the principal sponsor of that card at Melbourne.

It is not the course that Lynam would have plotted left to his own devices but, having had four days to mull it over, he was seeing the positives here. “If he retires to stud as champion European sprinter, it’s fine but let’s give him the chance to be champion world sprinter. Let’s bring him to where they have the best sprinters in the world and hopefully kick their ass.

“You won’t get to the bottom of this horse until he gets an end to end [a race in which the gallop is strong from the start]. That’s a real end to end, not when they’re quickening up a furlong and a half out. And you’ll get that over there. I’m looking forward to running him in Melbourne. He’s got to beat Lankan Rupee, who’s the exceptional sprinter over there.”

“There were some really, really good horses in that race and he was right there. That’s all you can ask for. He ran so good, you almost hate to lose.”

Spectrum [pictured right] stands at Yellow Star Stud. His grandson Tellina recently had a flying finish in the Gr1 Vodacom Durban July, placing fourth in a controversial finish between Legislate and Wylie Hall whilst Futura (out of a Badger’s Drift mare) finished third.

A top broodmare sire, his grandchildren include the likes of Gr1 winners Up, Winchester, abovementioned Dutch Art, and five-time Gr1 winning Moonlight Cloud – who almost dethroned Black Caviar at Ascot – to name but a few. He is also a sire of sires, amongst them Golan at stud.

– extract theguardian.com