Untameable aggression of Shaquille should make for a thrilling July Cup

Shaquille is named after a basketball player but his attitude seems a better fit for the NFL. "You have to play this game like somebody just hit your mother with a two by four," was the scarily pugnacious view of Dan Birdwell, a defensive lineman with the Oakland Raiders in the 1960s, and that's how Shaquille seems to feel every time he comes raging out of the starting stalls.

It's 11 months since his only defeat, in the Acomb Stakes at York, when it looked as if he wanted to flatten someone. In the absence of a potential victim in front of him, he opted to pick a fight with the man on top, and kept it up for as long as he could.

Unsurprisingly, he didn't see out the seven furlongs that day and has been kept to six ever since. That was also the day that suggested to connections he might possibly benefit from a hood.