The Beverley Bullet – Beverley Racecourse
One of the highlights of the season at Beverley is run at 2:40 on Saturday with the Listed Beverley Bullet Stakes. Run over 5-furlongs at the end of the summer season, this is one of the fastest races on the calendar and has been a feature at the Yorkshire track since 2004.
The Beverley Bullet – History
The race was first run in 2004 when it was won by the Ian Semple trained Chookie Heiton, who won the race again in 2005. The race is open to 3-year-olds and overs and the younger horses certainly fared better in its early years, winning the race exclusively between 2007 and 2010. A change to the weights, reducing the 3-year-old weight for age allowance to just 2lbs has levelled the playing field for the older horses. In fact, Master Hughie was the last 3-year-old to win the contest in 2010 when he won for Mick Channon under Sam Hitchcott. The rough and tumble of the 5-furlong chute up the hill at Beverley means that this race requires a horse with plenty of experience of this type of race and the fact that the last 11 renewals have been won by horses aged 5 or over supports that view. There have been 3 horses who have won the Beverley Bullet on more than one occasion, Chookie Heiton (2004, 2005), Take Cover (2017, 2018) and Tis Marvellous (2021, 2022). Tis Marvellous also holds the record for the fastest win in this race when he ran the course in 59.51s on Good to Firm ground in 2021.
The Beverley Bullet – Trainers and Jockeys
Bryan Smart holds the record for having trained the most winners of this race, his 3 victories coming with Hellvelyn (2007), Tangerine Trees (2011) and Alpha Delphini (2016), although Clive Cox is only 1 win behind now after winning the race in 2021 and 2022 with Tis Marvellous. Tom Eaves has ridden the most winners of this race, he also has 3 victories in the race with Chookie Heiton (2004, 2005) and Tangerine Trees (2011).
The Beverley Bullet – Recent Trends
As we have already seen the 3-year-olds do not have a good record in this race in recent times and even the 4-year-olds seem to struggle, with Stepper Point the last 4-year-old to win the race back in 2013. 4 of the last 10 SP Favourites have won this race and only Stepper Point (2013) had a double figure SP when he returned at 10/1. Whilst the overall statistics on the sprint course would support the theory that a low draw is preferable, 4 of the last 5 winners of this race have been drawn in stall 6 or higher, so it is not an insurmountable disadvantage.
Don’t forget to checkout our Blog on Saturday for our teams’ thoughts on this year’s race.
