Racing: Zieten can overtake old sprinters on his new path

A PARADOX of the July Cup is that many of the great winners have gone into the race as failures. In recent years Marwell, Habibti, Chief Singer, Green Desert and Ajdal have withered in domestic Guineas before proving their true mettle when returned to sprinting.

The lure of capturing a Classic with a horse of dubious staying capacity endures, and there are four runners today - Basim, Silver Wizard, Zieten and Marina Park - who had miling targets mapped out at the season's dawn. Of those in the diehards category, there is little to choose between the six-year-olds Keen Hunter and Elbio, who was fourth here last year.

The result that would require the Newmarket roof tiler to bring his ladder out would be a success for Vincent O'Brien and Lester Piggott, whose representative is College Chapel.

Racing's grandest partnership has recent form in the race via Royal Academy and Mr Brooks respectively, and their vehicle today goes into the July Cup with an intriguing record. He has won Group Three races on each of his three outings, which is rather like sauntering through grades of a violin exam just after getting the instrument out of its case. The bow is taken away from College Chapel this afternoon, however, as he faces firm ground for the first time in his life, and it is the quartet of failed milers which is likely to produce the winner.

Of these the most persuasive case can me made out for Zieten, who further proved that Andre Fabre does not send runners over from Chantilly to improve their English when winning the Middle Park Stakes on Newmarket's Rowley Mile course last autumn.

Zieten (3.40) has won over a mile this year, but that was in a slow-run race at Longchamp, and after his spluttering performance in the Poule d'Essai des Poulains (French 2,000 Guineas) a new path was charted for him. 'His pedigree, he's by Danzig, and his style of running makes us think he's a sprinter,' Anthony Stroud, racing manager to Zieten's owner, Sheikh Mohammed, said yesterday.

The same colours should also be seen to the fore in the first televised race on Silverdale (2.35), one of four in the race who finished behind Infrasonic in the Queen's Vase at Royal Ascot.

The handicaps should go to Harwood and Hannon, respectively the trainers of Marastani (next best 3.05) and VENTURE CAPITALIST (nap 4.10), who suffered a complicated passage at York last time to match Indiana Jones's tunnel approach to treasure.