Consistent high quality is a feature of the racecourse action in Britain and Ireland during July 2014, with at least one Listed or Group race staged on 22 of the month’s 31 days. Many valuable handicaps are also scheduled, guaranteeing ultra-competitive sport, alongside a host of fascinating two-year-old events, some of which are certain to include star performers of the future.

July 2

The first Pattern event, the €75,000 (Dh376,000) Group 3 1400m EBF Brownstown Stakes, is staged at Fairyhouse in Ireland, and it acts as a prelude to one of Britain’s midsummer racing jewels.

July 4-5

Sandown hosts a two-day fixture that includes four Listed contests, the £62,500 (Dh391,000) Group 3 1000m Coral Charge and, as the centrepiece of its Saturday programme, the £435,000 Group 1 2000m Coral-Eclipse Stakes, a prize taken in recent seasons by such brilliant horses as Oratorio and Sea The Stars.

Haydock serves up classy action on July 5, too, staging a seven-race card that features the £93,000 Group 2 2400m Lancashire Oaks and the £100,000 2400m bet365 Old Newton Cup, a Heritage Handicap which invariably attracts a field full of progressive contenders.

Ascot hosts a superb program on July 5 headed by the £100,000 Group 2 1600m Fred Cowley MBE Memorial Summer Mile, while York stages the valuable Heritage Handicap, the £100,000 2000m John Smith’s Cup.

July 10-12

Newmarket’s July Festival is the summer highlight and it runs for three days — and builds in excitement throughout.

The opening day’s program includes two Group 2 events — the £100,000 2400m Princess Of Wales’s boylesports.com Stakes and the £80,000 Portland Place Properties July Stakes — plus the £80,000 Group 3 2600m Bahrain Trophy and a £40,000 1600m Listed contest.

Fillies and mares take centre stage on Friday, July 11, when the race of the day is the £200,000 Group 1 1600m Etihad Airways Falmouth Stakes, while the final afternoon’s schedule features the £510,000 Group 1 1200m Darley July Cup, a leg of the Global Sprint Challenge; the £80,000 Group 2 1400m Superlative Stakes; and the 1400m Bunbury Cup, a £140,000 Heritage Handicap.

July 19

Classic action returns to the spotlight at the Curragh in the shape of the €400,000 Group 1 2400m Darley Irish Oaks. Won in the past decade by superstar fillies Ouija Board, Peeping Fawn and Snow Fairy, this contest is part of a superb eight-race card that also features the €65,000 Group 3 1200m Jebel Ali Racecourse And Stables Anglesey Stakes and the €60,000 1400m Group 3 Minstrel Stakes.

British courses have much to offer over this weekend, meanwhile, most notably thanks to Newbury hosting the £80,000 Group 3 1200m Al Basti Equiworld Hackwood Stakes, the £37,000 Listed 2000m Sharps Brewery Steventon Stakes and the Weatherbys Super Sprint, a £250,000 1000m event for two-year-olds purchased at public auction.

July 20

It is the Curragh, however, that has the last word in terms of quality, as the Dublin course hosts another excellent fixture on Sunday including the €100,000 Group 2 1800m Killboy Estates Stakes, the €60,000 Group 3 2000m Meld Stakes and the €100,000 1000m boylesports.com Rockingham Handicap.

July 23-24 July

Provides an irresistible feast of on-course fare, with Naas and Sandown hosting Listed contests led by the €60,000 1400m Tyros Stakes, open to runners of both sexes, and the €60,000 1400m Silver Flash Stakes, which is confined to fillies.

Each of those races is certain to offer clues about the developing juvenile pecking-order and on the following Saturday, July 26, worldwide racing fans get a chance to assess the championship claims of more established equine talent, when Ascot hosts the Group 1 2400m King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes. Sponsored by Qipco, this £1,000,000 event has an immensely rich heritage, having been won in the past 40 years by such giants of the turf as Shergar, Dancing Brave, Nashwan, Galileo and Hurricane Run.

York stages a fascinating card on that afternoon too, with its most valuable contest being the £100,000 Group 2 2000m Skybet York Stakes, while nearby Pontefract plays host to the £45,000 Listed 1600m Pomfret Stakes the next day.

July 29- Aug 2

Nothing can offer quite the fashionable chic with which July 2014 concludes at a glamorous venue close to England’s south coast. That venue is Goodwood and its massive summer festival attraction — the “Glorious” meeting — opens on Tuesday, the 29th. It runs for a total of five days, through to early August, but many of its high-class attractions slot neatly into the final days of July. They include Tuesday’s £150,000 Group 2 1400m bet365 Lennox Stakes; Wednesday’s

£300,000 Group 1 1600m Qipco Sussex Stakes, which seems likely to provide a clash between Toronado and Kingman, first and second in this season’s 2000 Guineas; and Thursday’s £120,000 Group 2 3200m Artemis Goodwood Cup. Why would anyone want to miss out on the perfect end to a marvellous month.

— Source GBI Racing