Oxted to be “checked out” after July Cup run

Leading sprinter Oxted is set to be checked out after his staying on third in the Group One Jul Cup on Saturday where he was looking to land back to back renewals of the race.

Oxted bounced onto the racing scene last term having showed huge promise as a juvenile when landing his final contest in September, he has gone on to do things for his handler they never thought would be possible.

After building in size and maturing for the winter, Oxted started his three year old career in the Group Three Abernant Stakes, seeing off a decent field of seven runners who have previous group race experience.

Having looked very professional at Newmarket he was sent back there for his first experience in a Group One with the July Cup over six furlongs attracting a superstar field of runners.

Teal's sprinter saw off the classy group to land his first ever black type victory with his jockey, the young Cieren Fallon also landing his first ever Group One success.

Next time out the black type winner could only finish fifth of 16 runners in the Champion Sprint Stakes where he was only length behind the winner Glen Shiel.

This season he has gone to a new level, finishing a narrow second in the Abernant Stakes he won last year and then next time out was a another close third in the Duke Of York Stakes.

Both of these runs set him up perfectly for the Group One King's Stands Stakes and Royal Ascot where he came good in the final furlong to take the event in style.

Looking to land back to back Group One events he was sent into the July Cup at 11/2, but could only manage third being fairly beaten by the Ed Walker trained Starman for a second time and Dragon Symbol.

Although the star sprinter gallantly did well to finish a decent third, he was also found to be suffering from mild heat stress post-race and Teal is now looking to see what the issue could be.

(Credit ATR) He said: “He seems absolutely fine, but we’re going to have him checked out because we don’t know why he hung across the track. We’ll have the vet look at him and see if there’s anything untoward.

“He got a little bit hot after the race. It was a stifling day and we had to get some cold water on him afterwards as his body was a bit over-heated. There were a couple in the race the same afterwards.

“He’s never hung across the track like that before, so we’ll monitor him over the next few days and see if anything comes to light.”

Hopefully Oxted will have come out of the race well and in a clean bill of health with his next proposed engagement looking to be the Betfair Sprint Cup at Haydock on September 4th.

“He still ran a huge race on Saturday. He lost a lot of ground hanging across like he did, so if he’d stayed straight it would have been interesting,” Teal added.

“It was a quality field – it was very scary to keep looking at it – but he’s run an absolute stormer and we couldn’t be more proud of him.

“We’re sort of running out of options now, so the Sprint Cup at Haydock would be his next target if all is well.”