At The Races pundit Declan Rix thinks red-hot Sprint Cup favourite Shaquille is worth opposing in Saturday’s Haydock Group One.
The star sprinter added a July Cup victory to his earlier success in Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot and now goes for a Group One treble for the Julie Camacho team.
It’s not been without drama though, having fallen out the stalls in both runs before tanking to the front at Newmarket.
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That was enough for Rix to take on the odds-on favourite with another Royal Ascot winner in Saint Larewnce.
“I think obviously Shaquille is the most likely winner,” Rix told the Weekend Winners digital show. “Thank goodness he’s running because if he wasn’t in here, it’d be a really bad renewal of the race.
“You want to take him on at that price. There’s the thing with the stalls and James Doyle has supposedly been up to Julie Camacho’s yard and they’ve been working hard and they think they have the key to him.
“But at 5/6, do you really want to be investing at that price?
“The other thing is that the speed is drawn middle to high with Regional, The Antarctic and Swingalong who I think are the speed horses.
“Shaquille is drawn in five and I wanted a horse who is drawn around the speed and would have an ideal setup and the horse I came down on was Saint Lawrence, the Wokingham winner.
“The horse has turned inside out since he left the Roger Varian yard and the Archie Watson team have done a brilliant job with him.
“He was impressive when slow away but Hollie Doyle had so much horse under her and from a long way out looked very confident.
“He ran well [in the Prix Maurice de Gheest] and it didn’t fall well that day with Hollie having to go around the houses.
“He’s just an each-way stab in a race that could set up well for him tactically, especially if the favourite misses the gates and the race develops away from him.”