IT'S the biggest Flat race of the year at Haydock Park Racecourse on Saturday.

The Stanleybet Sprint Cup - considered the six-furlong championship race of Europe - is worth a record £225,000 in prize money.

And punters are piling their own money on to horses that love running on rain soaked ground.

While the weather prospects are good between now and the weekend - with just a few showers forecast - conditions underfoot are currently described as "soft, and heavy in places".

That bodes well for last year's winner Somnus - trained in Yorkshire - who returns to defend his crown.

The race would remain in the North too should another mud lover Bahamian Pirate triumph for Britain's 'sprint king' trainer Dandy Nicholls.

The Sprint Cup is a prize much sought after by racehorse owners and trainers, and once again some of the quickest horses on both sides of the Irish Sea will take their chances on Saturday.

They include the favourite One Cool Cat - the colt sent off as favourite for the 2000 Guineas but who suffered problems in the race and is now on a mission to restore his reputation for top Irish trainer Aidan O'Brien.

Twenty-four horses remained in the race early this week. Trainers will announce their confirmed runners on Thursday.

The entire racecard at Haydock on Saturday is classy - more than £400,000 in prize money is up for grabs - with five Class 1 races including the Stanleybet.com Old Borough Cup and the Stanleybet Be Friendly Handicap, the latter commemorating the horse that won the first two runnings of the Sprint

Cup in 1966 and 1967.

Be Friendly - owned by the former BBC 'Voice of Racing' Sir Peter O'Sullevan - remains the only horse to have won the race twice, and a life-size bronze of him now stands resplendent in the paddock at Haydock

Park.

Haydock Park's managing director Adam Waterworth: "Stanleybet Sprint Cup day is always a great highlight of the racecourse's season. The main event has attracted all the top sprint horses, and a fantastic race is in prospect. It forms the centrepiece of an afternoon of high class action on the

racecourse."