Art Power could feature for Tim Easterby and the King Power team at Royal Ascot on Friday - Mike Cattermole also ponders a fascinating Hardwicke Stakes.
So, Stradivarius puts up the performance of his career to win his third Gold Cup – on soft ground he wasn’t meant to like – and crucially gives Covid Royal Ascot 2020 the stardust and feelgood factor we were looking for.
And Hayley did it again for the girls in winning back-to-back Sandringhams - what an afternoon on Thursday!
Day four is upon us already and both Jim Crowley and Roger Varian have got some real momentum going and even teamed up for a wins with Molatham and Khaloosy. But the in-form duo are in opposition in an intriguing Hardwicke Stakes.
Crowley rides Sheikh Hamdan’s Elarqam for Mark Johnston, whose narrow defeat at the hands of Lord North at Haydock is not looking too shabby now.
Varian sends out Defoe (Andrea Atzeni) to try and win the race for the second year running, and thereby emulate Maraahel, Fruits Of Love and Rock Hopper.
Throw in last year’s Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck and you really have a terrific renewal for what is effectively a King George trial. The Hardwicke wouldn’t have been attempted my many Derby winners in modern history and in fact the last to complete this double was St Paddy, way back in 1961.
Varian and Atzeni team up with the favourite, Pierre Lapin, for the day’s Group One, the Commonwealth Cup and carries the Defoe colours of Sheikh Mohammed Obaid.
Pierre Lapin won both his starts at two but both were on quick ground. Both he and Clive Cox’s Golden Horde by-passed the Guineas to be trained for sprint campaigns, whereas the likes of Mums Tipple and the filly Millisle drop back in trip after flopping in the Newmarket Classics.
The “king of speed” Wesley Ward has a busy day and runs the speedy filly Kimari here too, with Frankie up, and kicks off his day with Flying Aletha in the Albany Stakes. That’s a rare one – a juvenile race the American trainer has yet to win, having won the Queen Mary three times and the Norfolk, in which he runs Golden Pal this time, twice.
Mark Johnston is the only northern trainer to hit the board so far this week (with Dark Vision in the Hunt Cup) but Tim Easterby has had the new Palace of HolyroodHouse Handicap in mind for Art Power ever since he streaked to victory when racing returned at Newcastle on June 1.
Art Power also bolted up in the mud at York last year, so no worries for him with all this rain about. He is set to start favourite for owners King Power and former champ Silvestre De Sousa, who has been out of luck this week.
Johnston, meanwhile, could make sure that the northern trainers top and tail the card as West End Charmer is nearly disputing favouritism for the closing Duke Of Edinburgh Stakes.
Before that, Bjorn Neilsen, owner/breeder of Stradivarius, will be eager to see how the form of the Lingfield Derby Trial works out when Berkshire Rocco, a clear but well beaten second to Neilsen’s English King, goes in the Queen’s Vase.
Berkshire Rocco could even advertise his own St Leger claims for Andrew Balding and Oisin Murphy.
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