There are few bigger fans than Rod Millman of Saturday’s £250,000 Weatherbys Super Sprint, in which Monday’s 23 confirmations include the Windsor Castle winner Havana Hurricane and the Lily Agnes winner Ali Shuffle, plus his own hope Anthelia.

Millman has already won the Weatherbys Super Sprint twice, besides which he’s had several placed and plenty more in the money, which is offered down to tenth place as usual. As a National Stakes winner, Anthelia has a live chance of giving him a third win.

“The Weatherbys Super Sprint has been very good to me,” he agrees. “Lord Kintyre’s win in 1997 kept me in business, because without it we’d have been in danger of disappearing. Bettys Hope won for us in 2019, and we’ve also had seconds with Cop Hill Lad and Woolhampton, plus a few thirds and fourths and so on.

“It’s a lovely race and it gives the smaller owner a good chance of winning a big pot. I think we gave three grand for Bettys Hope and she won £123,000 in the Super Sprint.”

Millman’s runner this year cost only a little more than Bettys Hope, and whatever happens on Saturday the £6,000 he paid for the Supremacy half-sister to useful sprinter Punchbowl Flyer at Goffs last August looks money very well spent now that she has won three of her four starts, including that Listed race at Sandown, which is often a stepping stone to bigger things.

At first glance Anthelia’s more recent fifth over six furlongs at Newmarket was a little disappointing unless it was lack of stamina that beat her, but Millman doesn’t subscribe to that view and has an alternative explanation.

“It wasn’t stamina that beat Anthelia at Newmarket,” he insists. “She stays all right, and I blame myself as I got the tactics wrong. 

“I thought another horse who we were drawn next to would make the running, as she’d made all the time before. My instructions were to follow her and make sure she didn’t get too far back, and then we were flat footed mid-race. With different tactics I think we’d have gone close. She’s tough and hardy, and she’s come out of the Newmarket race well.”

He adds: “As I said when she won the National Stakes at Sandown the time before, it’s been a long time since we’ve had one that’s got to the top of our gallop as strongly as she does, but she’s obviously got plenty of speed too and I don’t think dropping back to five furlongs will be a problem. My son Patrick broke her in, and from very early she looked a flying machine.

“The Super Sprint offers a lot of prize money, and although she’s got a penalty for her Listed win she’s still fairly low in the weights and it allows her regular rider Lewis Edmunds to ride. He knows her very well and he’s often underestimated. He’s a horseman as well as a jockey and he rides very well.”

Last weekend’s shock July Cup winner Richard Hughes will have two live chances of adding another very valuable sprint pot, as he runs fillies-in-form Nifty and Our Cody.

Saturday's win with 66-1 chance No Half Measures came in a race in which the former champion jockey rode one of its very best winners, Oasis Dream in 2003, and the same can be said of the Weatherbys Super Sprint, as his second win in the race as a jockey in 2014 came on the brilliant Tiggy Wiggy.

A National Stakes winner, like Anthelia, Tiggy Wiggy was a sensational six-length winner at Newbury, and she went on to Group-race success in the Lowther and the Cheveley Park before finishing third in the following year’s 1000 Guineas. Hughes isn’t suggesting for one minute that either Nifty or Our Cody might be another Tiggy Wiggy but he expects them both to be in the money.

He says: “Nifty has won over six furlongs at Chelmsford and Salisbury but I think she’ll be better back at five. She’s a lovely little filly and she’s pretty quick. I think she has a chance. 

“My son bid on Our Cody and we got her for only three grand, but her form is very strong. Her second at Chelmsford to Venetian Lace reads well now and then she won very easily at Windsor. Both races were over five furlongs, and she’ll love the firm ground, as will Nifty. She has a chance of picking up money too.”

Reflecting on his time in the saddle on Tiggy Wiggy, he said: “She was one in a million. She was the best horse in the Super Sprint and started favourite, and as she was so fast I just let her rip. She was much too good for them and never saw another horse, coming home a mile clear. 

“She went on to prove herself a proper Group 1 two-year-old, and her third in the following year’s Guineas was a hell of an effort as she couldn’t possibly have stayed with all of the speed she had.

"I rode her the same way over the mile at Newmarket, as there was no point in trying to change anything, and I just tried to hang on for dear life. It just shows how tough she was. It was a massive run.”