New Approach is looking like he might be a seriously good stallion. Dawn Approach, Newfangled and Th’air make it three impressive Royal Ascot wins for the first season sire.
Dawn Approach also maintained his unbeaten record at Royal Ascot yesterday. I’ve backed him each time out, and am contemplating an antepost punt for the Guineas. Not bad for New Approach’s first season as a sire.
Black Caviar has landed in the UK!
There is something fascinating and a little bit crazy about putting a horse in a compression suit and on a plane for 30 hours, but hey, I’m glad it’s happened. So excited for Royal Ascot now!
Gai Waterhouse rang and said we’d been invited to the Queen Anne. The Pommies must think we’re absolute mugs. You’ve got to dress up and the prize-money is £250,000.
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John Singleton, owner of More Joyous, talking about the possibility of his mare running at Royal Ascot. Is it me, or does he sound like these two… |
Royal Ascot
Had a very pleasant day in the sunshine at Royal Ascot on Tuesday. And what a day of racing! The first race (the Queen Anne Stakes) was built up as a classic two-horse race, and although Cityscape briefly threatened to crash the party, it ended up as a shootout between legendary wondermare Goldikova, and the pretender to her throne as top miler, Canford Cliffs. Hannon’s 4 year old edged Queen Goldi this time out, but I’m far from convinced that Goldi is past it. At a less testing mile than at Ascot, I think she might turn the tables.
Next up was the 5f sprtint, the King Stand Stakes. Whilst discussing this prior to the race, we agreed that there wasn’t really a sprinting superstar in the lineup, although this may change next year if Black Caviar comes over for the meeting. As it was though, Prohibit was the surprise winner, beating Black Caviar’s stablemate, Star Witness into second. I backed Overdose, willing to forgive him his run at Haydock, and he ran a decent race in 4th.
The third race of the day was the St James’s Palace Stakes, and the return of Frankel. The bookies seemed to be running scared of him - the majority of on-course bookies were only offering a win only market (or a market without Frankel), and the couple that were offering each-way terms were doing so at 1/6th or even 1/7th of the odds! Ridiculous. Frankel went off as 30/100F, and seemed to settle quite nicely, but then 5f out chased down the pacemaker and took a 6 length lead about 2 and a half furlongs out. However, he then slowed considerably (whether this was due to tiredness or boredom due to no challenge?) and the field, Zoffany in particular, closed quickly, ensuring that Frankel’s victory was only by three-quarters of a length.
Later in the day, I was impressed by the performances of the 2 year old winners of the Coventry Stakes and Windsor Palace Stakes, Power and Frederick Engels respectively. Both are certainly worth keeping an eye on.
The first race yesterday saw Strong Suit impress in victory at 11/1, the operation to improve his breathing looks to have been a great success, and he may well go on to win some very good races now. The biggest race of the day was the Group One Prince of Wales’s Stakes, in which So You Think was trying to improve his ever-increasing reputation, and win me a fair whack, having placed a treble on him, Frankel and Canford Cliffs. Unfortunately, the race played out quite similarly to Frankel’s the day before, but Rewilding managed to do what Zoffany quite couldn’t, and made it past the heavy favourite just before the finishing post. Frustrating. Aidan O’Brien has since admitted that he probably didn’t quite have SYT fit enough to go the distance in that class. Thanks, Aidan!
Today’s card doesn’t look quite as interesting, with the Ascot Gold Cup being the only Group One, and the weather also looks pretty grim…
