the stands. I ended up watching it from t'weighing room ... I've never had an 'oss like him and never seen a better sprinter. He was a machine." He also recalled that he was reprimanded by the racecourse stewards for failing to wear appropriate dress as he appeared at the course in his usual suit and trilby. Lochnager was moved up in distance for the Group One July Cup over six furlongs at Newmarket Racecourse. He was heavily supported in the ante-post betting but his odds drifted out to 3/1 following rumours that he was not at his best. As in Lochnager's last two races, Hide sent the colt to the front approaching the final furlong and won decisively, holding off challenges from Three Legs (winner of that year's Duke of York Stakes) and Import (Wokingham Stakes) to win by three-quarters of a length and a neck. After the race Easterby was somewhat critical of Hide, offering the opinion that the horse would be better suited to more exaggerated waiting tactics. In August, Lochnager returned to five furlongs and started the 4/5 favourite for the William Hill Sprint Championship (formerly known as the Nunthorpe Stakes) at York Racecourse. Having already beaten most of his opponents he was expected to win easily, but after taking the lead a furlong out he had to be driven out by Hide to prevail by half a length from Faliraki with the 100/1 outsider Polly Peachum (also trained by Easterby) a neck away in third. Lochnager's win made him the first horse to complete the King's Stand-July Cup-Nunthorpe treble since Abernant in 1949. It was expected that Lochnager would end his career in the Prix de l'Abbaye at Longchamp Racecourse in October but he was withdrawn from the race. It was believed that his trainer did not wish to run him on the prevailing soft ground. Assessment Lochnager was not rated in the 1974 Free Handicap, a listing of the best two-year-olds to race in the United Kingdom. In their annual Racehorses of 1974, the independent Timeform organisation gave him a rating of 88, forty-six pounds below their top-rated two-year-old Grundy. Lochnager's Timeform rating improved to 120 pounds in 1975, fourteen pounds behind their Best Sprinter Flirting Around and seventeen behind their Horse of the Year Grundy. The official British handicapper rated him fourteen pounds inferior to Grundy, making him the seventeenth best three-year-old colt