G3 third for Tower Of London on first sprint attempt

Tower Of London, dropped down to six furlongs for the first time, finished a never-nearer third in the G3 Hakodate Sprint Stakes on turf at Hakodate, Japan, on Sunday, 16 June.

The four-year-old Raven’s Pass colt, trained by Kazuo Fujisawa and ridden by Damian Lane, was drawn on the outside and raced towards the rear of the seven runners.

He was asked to improve from fifth with two furlongs remaining, came wide into the straight and ran on well inside the final furlong to finish a neck off second place.

The winner Kaiser Melange, whose time was 1m 8.40s, had a length and a half to spare over the runner-up Aster Pegasus.

Harry Sweeney, President of Godolphin in Japan, remarked: “I was disappointed with Tower Of London today - a horse of his quality should have easily won that race. There are no excuses.

“I expect his trainer Kazuo Fujisawa will concur with me that we learned today that Tower of London is not truly a sprinter and is best over seven furlongs and a mile, distances at which he has already won three Group races.

“However, there are limited opportunities at those distances until the autumn and it is possible that Tower of London will run over six furlongs again later in the summer in Sapporo.”