Measuring Up

The Group 1 July Cup was a victory for the older generation, for facing the challenges of life in the sport head on, the for the “old-fashioned” down-to-earth British-bred sprinting division, and a part-breeder and consignor who knows her stuff.

No Half Measures, the 66-1 chance, won the Group 1 race for Richard Hughes, a 52-year-old trainer and former top-class jockey and a man who openly talks about the challenges he has faced from alcohol and the difficulties he finds coping with the lows and the stresses that comes with training racehorses.

After the race, Hughes said: “It’s brilliant. It’s been a tough enough road to get to here. I think I’ll definitely appreciate it more than if I started with a good horse early on. I wouldn’t have appreciated it and I didn’t appreciate all those good horses when I was riding. I just keep looking for the next one and was very fortunate in my riding career.

 “I was naïve when I started training – I thought you could buy 20 horses and it was going to be good. Then the following year was no good, too! You just keep chipping away, try to do the right thing.”

On when he thought No Half Measures might be special, the trainer continued: “She won a handicap here last year and when Ryan [Moore] got off her I asked will we get a bit of black-type for her? 

“There was very little pressure today really. Drawn 15 I wasn’t mad about so I said to Neil [Callan] ride her to be third and hopefully you’ll get a little bit of cover.

 “At halfway, I thought she was going OK and then I just held my head as I couldn’t believe what was happening! I kept thinking she is going to get caught and I would have been pleased with second or third.”

“There were a lot of dark days when I started training but Lizzie [wife] has been a huge support to me. If dad [his late father Dessie] was here today, he’d say he helped me there.”

The July Cup-winning jockey was Neil Callan, a spritely 47-year-old whose own son Jack is now riding alongside as an apprentice. Callan Snr put his years of experience – including the nine seasons he spent in Hong Kong, where he rode 262 winners - to good use.

He has had his own professional challenges and in April 2021 was banned until the end of the Hong Kong season that July for having been disrespectful to stewards at Happy Valley. The suspension was reduced on appeal, allowing him to return to racing at the end of May.

It was his last season riding in Hong Kong; he returned to England, citing family reasons.

In the UK this March, Callan received an eight-month suspension for inappropriate use of social media, including posts that were disrespectful to British Horseracing Authority (BHA) officials or prejudicial to British horseracing. The ban was suspended for two years, which meant that he could continue to ride in races – thankfully for him in the July Cup. 

Callan has ridden a career total of 14 Group 1 winners right across the globe, including Triple Time, winner of the Queen Anne Stakes in 2023 and Fonteyn, winner of the Sun Chariot Stakes, both for his former boss Kevin Ryan and owner Sheikh Mohammed Obaid. 

The pair are the two previous Group 1 winners he has ridden this decade.

After the July Cup victory Callan said: “Last year was a bit of a struggle and this year’s been a bit of a struggle, but you just wait for that one horse.”

“It’s surreal because I’m getting into the twilight of my career. My son Jack is starting and I’m getting a lot of flak saying I’ve got to give up. He was with Kevin Ryan yesterday, my old boss, and he was telling me I’ve got to retire – so this one’s for you, Kev!”

Callan added: “You know this game - you’re only as good as your last ride so you’ve got to come out and prove yourself every time you come out, every day. This is what I tell Jack - it doesn’t matter what you’ve done yesterday, you’ve got to come out and prove yourself again.

The filly’s 17-year-old sire Cable Bay, now enjoying a stud career in India (see page 46), has had something of a life of Group 1 near misses. 

As a juvenile, the son of Invincible Spirit lost out by just a length and a quarter in the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes when second to War Command.

At stud his first crop produced the capable filly Liberty Beach, who finished a two and a quarter lengths third in the King’s Stand Stakes (G1) as three-year-old behind a six-year-old Battaash and a five-year-old Equilateral

From Cable Bay’s second crop came Dragon Symbol, – the Archie Watson-trained colt famously won the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup of 2021 only to have the race taken from him in the stewards’ room. 

The success was something of a just result for Cable Bay, who became another northern hemisphere stallion son of Invincible Spirit to sire a Group 1 winner; the cohort headlined by this year’s all-conquering Kingman who has had 14 top-level winners and is sire of the likely 2025 champion horse of the year, Field Of Gold.

Also relocated to stand in Asia is Invincible Spirit’s son Territories, whose son Lazzat won June’s Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes after success in 2024 in the Prix de Maurice de Gheest (G1),  daughter Lady Ilze, who is featured in our editorial on Westminster Race Horses (page 54), won the Group 2 German 1,000 Guineas and finished a good fifth place in the Falmouth Stakes (G1). 

His son Regional took third in the King’s Stand Stakes (G1) behind American Affair and in March’s Al Quoz Sprint (G1) to Believing for Edward Bethell. 

Of course, the best stallion by Invincible Spirit is the multiple Australian champion I Am Invincible, the sire of 17 southern-hemisphere Group 1 winners.

Cable Bay is also a third stallion son of the Irish National Stud former star stallion, who was retired from stud duties after the 2024 season, to sire a July Cup winner after Charm Spirit (Shaquille, 2023) and Mayson, winner of the race himself in 2012 and sire of Oxted, successful in 2020. 

Oxted was also third to Starman the following year having won the
Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes from Arecibo, also by Invincible Spirit. 

Amazingly Arecibo is still racing as a 10-year-old. He has dropped to a mark of 71, but is doing a fine job of taking the apprentices around the sprint tracks in the north of England for Declan Carroll. 

He has won ten races, run 87 times and was still rated 90 last year and has won prize-money of over £380,000.

No Half Measures hails from some of the best, nicest and most down-to-earth breeders in the north of England, is related to one of the most popular sprinters of recent years and boast faily ties to good old-fashioned, hard-knocking British sprint pedigrees.

She was part-bred by Bumble Mitchell of Bumble Bloodstock (an online reference calls her the “legendary” Bumble Mitchell) and her neighbour Sally Nicholls of Marwell Stud.

So when Fascinator, a daughter of Helmet bred by Denniff, was offered to Bumble out of the Ann Duffield yard, she took the rare chance to invest in a filly from the family, not too worried about purchasing a future broodmare prospect who had run in Duffield’s name four times without success. 

 “Fiona Denniff has produced a brilliant family, I am a fan of Helmet mares, too, and we bought Fascinator privately,” says Bumble. 

“We sent her to Cable Bay for her second covering, he’d had Liberty Beach by then. I just remember it being through the Covid year, which made everything very stressful, though on the plus side there was not much traffic on the road!”  

No Half Measures is a grand-daughter of Mary Read (Bahamian Bounty), who ran seven times in her eight-race career over 5f, was BHA rated 100 and finished second in the Molecomb Stakes (G2). 

Her dam Hill Welcome was bought by Denniff Farms for 3,000gns in 2001 as a three-year-old out of Barry Hills’s Faringdon Stables. 

Hill Welcome did not win for her new owners and did not get a rating above 60, but the filly by Most Welcome, and despite her bargain basement price,
did boast a decent sibling – she was a half-sister to the Gimcrack Stakes (G2) and Middle Park (G1) winner Stalker, who was bred and raced by Paddy Fetherson-Godley and trained by Peter Walwyn. 

Stalker finished second in the Mill Reef Stakes – after making all he was headed in the shadow of the post by Luqman. 

Back in fourth place was a colt called Green Desert.

In the Middle Park Stakes, Stalker again made all, but managed to stay in front and provided a last major success for 50-year-old jockey Joe Mercer, who retired at the end of that season. 

Hill Welcome and Stalker were out of a mare called Tarvie, who won three races over 6f and who was rated 101 by Timeform in 1980. She was descended from the mare Distant View. 

The Denniff’s covered Hill Welcome with Bahamian Bounty and that first foal was Mary Read. She has reached the heights as a granddam of the popular but ill-fated fast-running sprinter Kachy, who, like his ancestor Stalker, jumped the stalls and liked to make all. 

Hill Welcome also became a noteworthy name in the breeding sheds thanks to her grand-son and the Denniff Farms-bred Beat The Bank (Paco Boy), twice a winner of the Summer Mile (G2), the Celebration Mile (G2), the Sandown Mile (G2), the Joel Stakes (G2) and the Thoroughbred Stakes (G3). He was also second in the Queen Anne Stakes (G1).

His half-sister Chil Chil (Exceed And Excel) won the Chipchase Stakes (G3) and took third in the Sprint Cup (G1).

And so we come full circle.

No Half Measures has an unraced two-year-old half-sister by Showcasing called Mystic Viel, owned by Fawzi Nass.

She is now in training with Archie Watson, the trainer who was denied that Group 1 victory for Dragon Symbol

And we will leave the final word to the Lincolnshire-based breeder.

“It is one of my big dreams to have bred the winner of the July Cup,” says Bumble.