Racing: Softer going can make Millenary's stamina tell

Racing's caravan traverses another crest this week and enters the turf's valley of relaxation. Over the next month, culminating in Glorious Goodwood, there is a laid-back feel about the sport, a time for straw hats, Pimms and racecards employed as fly-swatters. The gentle days are led in this afternoon by the arrival of Newmarket's July meeting, a much more clement venue than its unwelcoming and blasted Rowley Mile relative just up the road.

There will be five Group races over the three days on the July course, but only a single Group One. The crescendo culminates in the powder keg explosion of the July Cup on Thursday. In between, there is also a change of emphasis, as several of the nation's best two-year-olds, some of them the Classic animals of next season, are released on to the racecourse.

This is a significant moment for the Godolphin creche at nearby Stanley House, from where David Loder will send out some serious markers this week. We start today in the maiden won 12 months ago by the flying Dubai Destination, in which Majestic Horizon will represent Sheikh Mohammed's team.

The big race of the day though is the Group Two Princess Of Wales's Stakes, in which there will be a comparison of generations. Flying solo for the Classic crop is Simeon, who faces stablemate Yavana's Pace and five further older rivals.

Following three consecutive domestic victories, Simeon sallied abroad in the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby), in which he was third to the outstanding pairing of Sulamani and Act One, though considerably closer to the more prosaic yardsticks of Black Sam Bellamy, Castle Gandolfo and Diaghilev. He is first out as the leading three-year-olds at Mark Johnston's Kingsley House yard try to restore their value after a mid-season crash.

"There are plenty of opportunities coming up for Simeon, but I had three entries in a nine-entry race and it would have been madness to skip it altogether," Johnston said yesterday.

"We looked at the race and felt we had to go there with one of our two principal candidates. We looked right up until Saturday about which one, and we thought Simeon was ready and Bandari wasn't. There is another good reason for going because we were thinking prior to going to France that he was a 10-12 furlong horse. But when Frankie [Dettori] got off in France he said he would even go a mile and three-quarters. He saw him as a St Leger horse. Our first impression was to come back in trip, so I think it's quite important to try him out again over a mile and a half to help us make future plans.

"Yavana's Pace doesn't quite look to be the force that he was and he probably needs soft ground to see him at his best. We doubt whether we'll get it soft enough at Newmarket but we know there is rain forecast so we thought we should have him in just in case.

"Simeon looks as though he will handle it any way at all. The thing you can say about him is that when it gets difficult and too firm or soft for some of the others he probably copes where others fail."

With around 4mm of rain predicted for last night it is most possible that the going will be good to soft by race time. The 12 furlongs will therefore take some getting and that factor tips the balance in favour of the 2000 St Leger winner Millenary (next best, 4.00), who may have been beaten in his last six starts but has maintained a consistent level of form along the way.

Today is ladies' day both on and off the track, with the Cherry Hinton Stakes the first Group Two race of the season for juveniles. The result of the Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot means that the runner-up that day, Never A Doubt, will probably start favourite, just ahead of Pearl Dance, who has roughly the same chance on the book.

That should lead to a decent price about Presto Vento (3.25), who was sixth at Ascot having been drawn on the wide outside, without any cover. She has operated on ground with an element of give and is the representative of a Richard Hannon yard replete with talented young fillies this year.

David Nicholls, who has a good strike-rate at this meeting for someone with such a scattergun approach, has found an opportunity for True Night (2.20), a running-on fifth after a bumpy passage at Doncaster nine days ago.

The day before, another trainer who does well at this meeting, Ben Hanbury, saddled TUDOR WOOD (nap 2.50) to run a similar sort of race over this course and distance. The three-year-old had previously run second to the subsequent Group One winner Malhub at Yarmouth. The booking of Dettori puts the last piece into place.