Racing: Millenary grinds his way towards a place in the King George

Newmarket July Meeting: Staying power earns the Princess of Wales's Stakes winner a tilt against Sakhee in Ascot's summer showpiece

The moulding of the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes market continued yesterday in the rain of Sandown and the eventual sunshine here on the July course.

Frankie Dettori was the common factor as he and Sakhee whistled clear of a group of galloping partners in a morning gallop at Esher. The Italian was again detached from his field later in the day, in the Princess of Wales's Stakes at Headquarters, in fact removed by a distance and more as Godolphin's Kutub finished last and out of sight behind Millenary in the big race of the day.

Sakhee seemed an extinguished talent when thrashed by his stablemate Street Cry in the Dubai World Cup in the spring, but it now seems he might be able to regain the brilliance of a four-year-old season which yielded a Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe win and narrow defeat in the Breeders' Cup Classic.

Sakhee was placed in company with Sydenham, Divine Task and Atlantis Prince over 10 furlongs on very soft ground at Sandown. Dettori eased him into the lead two furlongs out and from there he stretched well clear.

"Sakhee went well and the whole team is very pleased," Simon Crisford, the Godolphin racing manager, reported. "He finished 10 lengths clear following some excellent work up the hill and will improve for that. That will have put him right for the King George."

Coral go 13-8 about the favourite for the high-summer championship on 27 July while Millenary is 10-1 with the same firm following his redoubtable afternoon success.

The Princess of Wales's was first dominated by the stablemates Yavana's Pace and Simeon, who led an indian file well past the turn into the July Course's expansive straight. The latter, the only three-year-old, employed a slightly tilted head carriage, as if looking over the garden wall.

It was a bearing that could soon be detected going in reverse as the contest built to its climax. Marcus Tregoning's Mubtaker crept up on Yavana's Pace and poached an advantage which appeared decisive.

You could have been half-way down the stairs to collect the winnings on Nayef's galloping partner but, by the landing, the shape of the race was changing. Pat Eddery switched Millenary to the centre of the course and suddenly stamina became the defining issue. By the line he had ground out a neck victory.

This was a fifth win in the race for Eddery, a third for the trainer John Dunlop, who would have been watching this race from the celestial betting shop had he not survived a normally terminal ruptured aorta in March.

Millenary may not have the class to win a King George but, if this sodden summer continues, more will finish behind than in front in the Queen's acre. "He will have to go to Ascot as long as the ground is suitable," Dunlop said. "The ground is very important for him. He does like to get his toe in a bit and it was too firm when he was beaten in the Hardwicke and when he was just got nabbed up here in the Jockey Club Stakes.

"He's a grand horse but he just does need that little bit of give in the ground. He's a very smart horse with the right conditions."

Richard Quinn, who won the 2000 St Leger on Millenary, was earlier successful in the day's other Group Two race when guiding home Spinola in the Cherry Hinton Stakes. The Scot darted his mount up the rail with just over a furlong to run, a move which transpired to be the decisive manoeuvre as he had just a short-head and a head to spare over Cassis and Pearl Dance as the cavalry arrived. Spinola will be back in town in the autumn for the Group One Cheveley Park Stakes.

The winner is named after a hotel in Malta which once housed a couple of the syndicate members which own her. One of their number is Lynda Clark, from near Fleet in Hampshire, whose only previous horse was another Peter Harris syndicate animal, Primo Valentino. He won the Middle Park and Mill Reef Stakes in 1999. Ms Clark has yet to have one of her runners compete in a handicap. "Is there such a thing as a bad horse?" she asked. She ought to get out more.

* Tony Culhane was jeered by punters after dropping his hands to coast in on the odds-on True Courage, caught near the line by Kahalah at Pontefract yesterday. Culhane received the maximum 21-day ban from the stewards and said: "I messed up in a major, major way and I can't blame punters for reacting the way they did." Police escorted the jockeys from the weighing room to the parade ring for the next race although Culhane did not have any more rides.