PURPLE PATCH: Welcome to our new blog series identifying sportstars who are enjoying standout moments in their career. This week we are looking Battaash ahead of his run in the Nunthorpe on Friday.
Why the Batmobile has become Europe’s best sprinter
Although widely regarded as one of, if not, the fastest horses in training, Charlie Hills’ Battaash was perhaps never seen as a true great given his tendency to put in a well below-par performance.
The star sprinter could go from the sublime to the ridiculous, with a rocket-like performance often followed by one that paled in comparison, leaving fans, pundits and often his trainer scratching their heads.
However, in the past two seasons, the six-year-old has gone a long way to righting those wrongs with a number of breathtaking performances which have really shown why many have referred to him as the ‘Batmobile’.
Since the start of the 2019 campaign, Battaash has run on seven occasions, winning five of them by a staggering combined margin of 11 and a quarter lengths.
In that time, he’s won the G2 Temple Stakes at Haydock, while he’s successfully defended the King George Stakes at Goodwood for a third and fourth time.
Arguably the most impressive of all his wins so far, though, came in last year’s running of the Group Nunthrope at York, where he pulverised the field by over three lengths and in doing so broke the course record that had stood for nearly 30 years.
That was held by Dayjur who was also owned by Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum and he’ll be hoping his current sprinting sensation can repeat the feat on Friday.
One thing that’s for sure, though, is that the ‘Batmobile’ is once again in full working order.
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