BATTMAN RETURNS

Hills: We’re focused on unfinished business

itself.” Battaash has unfinished business on the Royal heath.

As a two-year-old, he lost all chance in the Windsor Castle Stakes when boiling over in the stalls.

The past two years, the gelding, now six, has been a strong fancy for the King’s Stand, only to find Godolphin’s Blue Point too strong on the climb to the winning post.

Blue Point is now at stud, and Battaash is as short as 4-7 to profit from his old rival’s absence by landing the five-furlong Group 1 at the third attempt.

Do those cramped odds ramp up the pressure on the trainer?

“I’ve already lived so many emotions with him now, I’m pretty used to it,” Hills replied smiling.

Battaash has no peers among the speedsters when the planets align.

He blasted to a four-length supremacy in the top-level Prix de l’abbaye at Chantilly in October 2017, and enjoyed the same cushion over his rivals at Glorious Goodwood the following summer.

And Jim Crowley’s mount, twice beaten in York’s Group Nunthorpe Stakes, again put up the signature performance by a sprinter when searing to a three-and-three-quarter length triumph in the Knavesmire last August.

“He seems to do one race a year when he does those figures,” observed Lambourn-based Hills, who took out his own licence when his father Barry retired in 2011.

“He’s done the highest Timeform figures each of the last three years.”

Hills isn’t one for counting his chickens. But Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum’s runner is the best horse in the race, and Hills has seen nothing to suggest the gelding’s powers are on the retreat.

“His work has been as good as it ever is,” said Hills. “With these sprints it depends on the draw and the pace of the race.”