ROYAL ASCOT 2018 – DAY 4

ALBANY STAKES, G3

Royal Ascot Fri 23 June 2017 Picture: Caroline Norris
Different League ridden by Antoine Hamelin winning The Albany Stakes from Alpha Centauri ridden by Colm O’Donoghue, 2nd.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]rainer Mark Johnston started day four of Royal Ascot 2018 as he finished day three – with a winner, Main Edition (7/1) coming late to win the G3 Albany Stakes for the Middleham-based trainer. Winning the Albany for the first time and recording his 43rd victory at Royal Ascot, discounted any thoughts regarding future Classic aspirations for the daughter of Zoffany. Main Edition provided jockey James Doyle with his second victory of the week at Royal Ascot 2018. The two-year-old daughter of Zoffany
ran on strongly in the closing stages to score by a neck in the six-furlong contest. Godolphin’s La Pelosa was second, with the Aidan O’Brien-trained Fairyland, a half-length back in third. Doyle picked up a two-day ban for using the whip above the permitted level in the last furlong and a half.

La Pelosa is rewarding the faith placed in her when bought at Tattersalls’ Craven Breeze-Up Sale in April. It took a 280,000gns investment to secure her for Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation, but she is worth a good bit more than that following her excellent neck second place- under William Buick. The daughter of Dandy Man was beaten a neck by Main Edition, and she finished half a length clear of third-placed Fairyland from Aidan O’Brien’s stable. O’Brien’s Just Wonderful was sent off the 2/1 favourite, but could finish only 14th of 18 runners.

KING EDWARD VII STAKES, G2

[dropcap]G[/dropcap]odolphin’s good week continued – as did that of Darley Stud – when Old Persian, a son of Dubawi, won the G2 King Edward VII Stakes. The Charlie Appleby-trained winner was given a fine ride by in-form William Buick, beating Rostropovich and Giuseppe Garibaldi by one and three-quarters of a length and a neck. Appleby: “We had a great team of two-year-olds last year, and I felt they all wintered well and came into the spring in great nick. This horse has done nothing but progress through the spring, and we felt this was the right race for him and that stepping up in trip would suit. You saw William make a great manoeuvre after the first two or three furlongs. He just sat on Frankie’s quarters because we know Frankie on the front end is always dangerous, and when he looked through his legs and had everyone stacked up behind I knew William was in the right place. He’s a typical son of Dubawi – he’s improved from two to three and I’m sure he will progress from three to four. It was the first time the son of Dubawi has run over the middle distance trip.”

Buick: “I wanted to make sure that stamina came into play, I wanted to be in a position that I could do something about it in the straight. As you could see his last furlong was his strongest so it is a very, very pleasing performance. I had to take it up because he has such a big, lovely stride, and I did not want it turning into too much of a sprint. He was a willing partner and saw it out well to the line. He is a lovely horse for the future.”
Rostropovich and Giuseppe Garibaldi finished second and third for trainer Aidan O’Brien and owners Coolmore. Rostropovich, ridden by Donnacha O’Brien, was one and three-quarter lengths behind the winner in second, with a neck back to his stable companion, ridden by Seamie Heffernan, in third.

COMMONWEALTH CUP, G1

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]heikh Hamdan Al Maktoum’s Shadwell operation landed its second G1 Commonwealth Cup since the race’s inception in 2015, when Eqtidaar won the latest edition for trainer Sir Michael Stoute. Eqtidaar followed in the hoof prints of Shadwell’s Muhaarar, who stepped up from his Royal Ascot victory in 2015 to become champion sprinter, unbeaten in a further three Group One contests, and now regarded as a very promising young sire at the Sheikh’s Shadwell Stud in Norfolk. His first crop will appear as two-year-olds in 2019. A home-bred, by the stallion Invincible Spirit, Eqtidaar has some way to go to match Muhaarar’s feats, but he is on his way following victory over his 21 rivals in today’s sprint. A 12/1 shot, ridden by Jim Crowley, he beat Sands Of Mali and Emblazoned by half a length and one length.
Sir Michael was not shocked by the victory, although Eqtidaar had not won on his three previous starts, following a winning debut as a two-year-old. The trainer said: “We have always liked this horse. I thought things just didn’t go quite right for him the first time he ran here in the Pavilion Stakes. Then at Newbury last time, he was on the wrong side of the track and at halfway was too far out of his ground. He just showed how talented [a sprinter] he is. We have had some good ones like Marwell, Ajdal, and Green Desert. He is progressing nicely.”

Jim Crowley is retained jockey to Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum, who owned the 2015 G1 Commonwealth Cup winner Muharrar. Trained by Charlie Hills, Muharrar went on to win the G1 Darley July Cup, G1 Prix Maurice De Gheest and the G1 QIPCO British Champions Sprint Stakes, becoming the European Champion Sprinter for 2015.
Paul Hanagan wasthe rider of the fast-finishing half-length runner-up Sands Of Mali. Third-placed Emblazoned finished two and a quarter lengths further in third. Overseas visitor Gidu, trained by Todd Pletcher in New York State, came home a creditable sixth.

CORONATION STAKES, G1

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]rainer Jessica Harrington broke her Royal Ascot maiden tag in style when her Mastercraftsman filly Alpha Centauri, owned and bred by the Niarchos family, won the G1 Coronation Stakes by six lengths and in a course record time of 1m 35.89s from the Mark Johnston-trained Threading.
Winner of the Irish 1,000 Guineas, she was one of three Guineas winners coming into the race, and on paper it looked a hugely competitive renewal of the race over Ascot’s round mile. Alpha Centauri loomed upsides the leaders coming into the home straight and jockey Colm O’Donoghue kicked early, the pair put the race to bed in a matter of strides.

A beaming Alan Cooper, racing manager to the Niarchos family, said: “We always been happy with the filly and Jessie lets the horses do the talking, and there was nothing negative ahead of the race. She does the training and said everything was good and so you just have to take the chance. Going into the race we were very nervous, looking at the form of the others, but we’ve shown them all today. It’s the Niarchos family’s third Coronation win.
Harrington, also a successful Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning trainer, said: “First, I am relieved; I definitely was very nervous today as I know she is a great filly. It was rather nice going into the Irish 1,000 Guineas as we were very much under the radar, she hadn’t run well on soft ground two runs before that – today we were there to be shot at. The ground is the key to her. As you see there, she is a very big filly – she weighs 520kg – and I think when she is on soft ground she physically can’t get her feet out of the ground. She just floats on top of the ground. What she wants is good ground, what she doesn’t want is heavy ground. Colm was very confident on her, she jumped well and settled great and when Colm turned in I thought ‘jeepers, he has gone very soon,’ but the further she went the quicker she went.” When comparing the feeling of a top level success jumping compared with on the Flat, Harrington said: “Any winner is a great winner, and to have a Grade 1 winner over jumps or a Group 1 winner on the Flat, it is the same feeling, it is fantastic. Flat racing is over quicker, which is great, jumping you’ve got to go three miles and two furlongs and over fences and it’s an awful lot of time and you’ve got to have an awful lot of heart jumping out of the mud. My yard is now about fifty-fifty jumping horses to Flat horses. I have a great team and lots of family work for me – both daughters work for me and I am about to get my son in law too. I hope we’ll get on well together!”

O’Donoghue, a long-time member of Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle team, highlighted by his success aboard Sword Fighter for O’Brien in the 2016 Queen’s Vase, became Harrington’s first jockey in 2016 and he was effusive in his praise of the trainer and Alpha Centauri.
Threading and Veracious, who chased home the hugely impressive victress Alpha Centauri, were not disgraced given they both suffered disruptions in the spring. Threading ran very poorly first time and missed the Qipco 1000 Guineas, while Veracious suffered a bruise and had not run this season until today. In the circumstances, with Classic winners Billesdon Brook and Teppal behind them in fourth and ninth respectively, the placed fillies are worth following wherever they run next.

SANDRINGHAM HANDICAP

Agrotera and Jamie Spencer win the Sandringham Handicap at Royal Ascot for trainer Ed Walker. 22/6/2018 Pic Steve Davies/Racingfotos.com

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ambourn trainer Ed Walker gained a well-deserved first Royal Ascot success in his eighth season with a licence when Agrotera romped home in the Sandringham Handicap. The filly became a second winner this week for racehorse owner and breeder Bjorn Nielsen, who owns the Kingsdown Stables where Walker is based, and who the day before enjoyed the thrill of a G1 Gold Cup victory with another home-bred horse, Stradivarius. Agrotera (11/2 favourite) won a good bit more easily than that colt, scoring by two and three-quarter lengths from Ortiz (66/1), and there was another length and a neck to Escape The City (66/1) and fourth-placed Desert Diamond (10/1).
Now in his second season at Nielsen’s base, having started his career in Newmarket, Walker, who trains about a dozen horses for his landlord, said: “That’s epic. We’ve been hitting the crossbar in the past three weeks, left, right and centre, with lots of fancied horses getting beaten. We’ve run 30-odd horses without a winner coming into this meeting, and it’s been dreadful. As a trainer you are a constant worrier, and it doesn’t do your confidence any good coming here to take on the world’s best. However, we knew we had a very good filly and she was on a very good mark of 88, and she proved that today. I was full of confidence about her, even though the horses had been running well but not winning, which was almost worst. She got a bit hot in the preliminaries today, and that worried me a bit, but she was fine. Bjorn Nielsen is a great guy and it’s a wonderful set-up. He’s been a great supporter of ours over the past 18 months; he breeds magnificent horses like this filly and Stradivarius, and while he’s a relatively small breeder he’s very good at it and thinks about it a lot. Every year my assistant says, ‘What’s the target this year?’ and I always say a Group One winner and a Royal Ascot winner. This means everything. The whole world is watching and it’s so hard to win here. I remember it took Ralph Beckett 17 years to gain his first Royal winner, and Marco Botti is a great trainer who has been around a while and only trained his first winner yesterday. It’s tough, because everyone is trying their hardest and bringing their best horses.”

DUKE OF EDINBURGH HANDICAP

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]n emotional David Elsworth, with a few tears behind his dark glasses, welcomed the 7/2 favourite Dash Of Spice back to the winners’ enclosure after victory in the Duke Of Edinburgh Handicap. The four-year-old son of Teofilo is the trainer’s 16th Royal Ascot winner and first since 2007 – his first-ever winner coming in 1980. Elsworth said: “Despite the hike in the weights since Epsom and going up 11 pounds, Dash Of Spice seems to be ahead of the handicapper. I thought he was a certainty – I’d have been pissed off if he did not win today! He got across from the outside draw and got a kick in the belly from Silvestre and won well. It is great for Jeff Smith, who is a top supporter. He puts 15 or 20 horses in training every year and it is good for him to win here.
An equally emotional owner-breeder Jeff Smith said: “That was Royal Ascot winner number nine – and I must be 109 now! This is a good horse and to win at Epsom and then come here, it is wonderful. He has just taken a long time to come to hand, but we know the family backwards, we’ve had lots of success with it.”
Silvestre de Sousa registered his fifth victory overall at the Royal Meeting following. The four-year-old son of Teofilo responded willingly to de Sousa’s urgings to take the lead in the final furlong and ran on strongly to score by two and a quarter-lengths in the 12-furlong contest. De Sousa, the reigning Stobart Champion Flat Jockey, said: “Thanks to Mr Elsworth and Jeff Smith owner, they have been great to me through the years.”
Jim Goldie, trainer of the second placed Sir Chauvelin (33/1), who went down to the winner by two and a quarter lengths, was nonetheless delighted by his horse. Goldie said of his Authorized six-year-old gelding’s run: “I think I would have had him as a six or seven to one shot. If you ran the Zetland Gold Cup 100 yards, we would have won that and if you ran this over another 50 yards, we would have won.