Aidan O'Brien was far from despondent despite Minnie Hauk's defeat in the Tattersalls Gold Cup on Sunday.
Minnie Hauk enjoyed a fabulous 2025, winning the English, Irish and Yorkshire Oaks before running Daryz to a head in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe before a slightly disappointing sixth at the Breeders' Cup in November.
Starting out for the new season over 10 furlongs, Minnie Hauk was made the 4/6 favourite but could only trail home a well beaten fifth as Almaqam gained a breakthrough Group 1 success.
O'Brien, however, felt there was an obvious reason to explain away the performance, telling Racing TV: "It was easy to know what happened there.
"They jumped to go and they went for three furlongs. Ryan made the decision when they were going that he was going to take his time on her and that was the right thing to do. But then the pace went out of the race, so Ryan ended up back in a slowly run mile and a quarter on a mile and a half filly so he had no chance.
"With her you'd want an end-to-end gallop over a mile and a quarter at the top level for her to come into her best.
"Them things happen and he made the right decision at the time and then the pace went down so he was trapped back so he was going to find it very hard to run down those horses, you don't really run them down because they have to be coming back to you if you're on a mile and a half filly.
"She'll leave that run well behind her I would imagine. Maybe something will come up that I can't see there tomorrow but I'd imagine that's what did happen."
When asked if the Prince of Wales's Stakes at Royal Ascot was still on the cards, he responded: "I think it's a good option.
"The lads will see what they want to do, but she will need an end-to-end gallop and I imagine if we go to Ascot the next time, we'd go forwards at the gate, there'd be no taking back, we wouldn't be taking a chance on the pace dropping away.
"So there are things that we can think about and talk about but I think she'll leave it well behind her and we move on from there."
Paddy Power latest betting for the Prince of Wales's Stakes: 6/5 Daryz, 5/2 Ombudsman, 7/1 Almaqam, 8/1 Calandagan, 14/1 Kalpana, 16/1 Minnie Hauk.
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