Ralph Beckett’s Kinross appeared to have outstanding claims before the Cazoo Park Stakes and the race went very smoothly for the 5/6 favourite.
Providing Frankie Dettori with a Group-race double having earlier won the Champagne Stakes on Andrew Balding’s Chaldean, he was following up his success in the City of York Stakes last time out.
Always handy, the winner had Al Suhail for company for much of the race and having seen him off, Irish Guineas runner-up New Energy threw down the last challenge – but the closest he could get was within a length at the line.
Dettori said: “Seven furlongs, fast ground or soft ground, he’s a star. He doesn’t know how to run a bad race.
“He did what he had to do, he enjoyed himself and I did.”
Beckett, who confirmed the Prix de la Foret would be next, a race in which he finished fourth to Space Blues last year, said: “We’ll look forward to it, he got a bit far back in it last year and as Frankie just said, we know each other now.
“I’d imagine we’ll go straight there and after that we’ll see.”
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Trillium wins Flying Childers thriller
Trillium cut down market rival The Platinum Queen to win the Group Two Coral Flying Childers Stakes by a short head.
Richard Fahey's The Platinum Queen (7/4 favourite), runner-up in the Nunthorpe when last seen, attempted to make all of the running in the five-furlong dash under Oisin Orr and still held the advantage with half a furlong to travel.
The Richard Hannon-trained Trillium had been ridden with more patient by Pat Dobbs and as The Platinum Queen edged to her left towards the far side rail in the closing stages, 2/1 shot Trillium edged ahead to take the spoils.
Crispy Cat finished a further four and a quarter lengths back in third at 7/1.
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Sky Bet reacted by cutting Trillium to 7/2 from 9/2 for the Cheveley Park Stakes and Hannon hopes the winner can develop into a 1000 Guineas filly next year.
“I’m delighted with her, she’s turned into the most lovely filly and she has grown a lot,” he said.
“She clearly wants six furlongs now, Pat couldn’t pull her up, and it will be the Cheveley Park next.
“Hopefully she can develop into a Guineas filly next year if she keeps progressing."
Dobbs said: “I couldn’t pull her up, she wanted to go round again. Sam Hitchcott has been riding her these past couple of weeks and he’s done a great job in getting her settled.
“Richard just keeps her sweet at home, she trains herself. She’s very quick and very tough so that is everything you want. She actually travelled too well and never relaxed properly so it’s probably a better performance than it looks.”
Tom Palin of Middleham Park Racing, owners of The Platinum Queen, said: “When it’s such a narrow margin it’s not nice to be on the wrong end of it, but she’s run a blinder and I think they’re two very nice fillies.
“I’d love to have another crack at her (Trillium). If we ran it again I’d like to think we could do things a little bit differently, just get her to relax a little bit more on the front end.
“If Trillium wasn’t in the race she’d have been a good winner and we’d have been waxing lyrical.
“There’s no immediate plans. We’re in the Cheveley Park in a couple of weeks’ time. Whether we want to go up to six furlongs or not, we’ll have to have a think about it.
“We’re in the Abbaye and that’s probably something we’ll have a look at if the ground isn’t too soft. She coped with that ground today, but on better ground she can bounce off it and she might have got away further and Trillium would have had a bigger margin to bridge.
"There is the Cornwallis at the backend of the year as well and there’s also America (Breeders’ Cup), so we just need to think about where we want to pitch her in next time."
Trillium (left) edges past The Platinum Queen
A-star performance from Asjad
Asjad (7/1) won the Cazoo Handicap over six and a half furlongs, bouncing straight back to form on his favoured soft ground.
The four-year-old, trained by James Horton for John and Jess Dance, was held up towards the rear by P J McDonald and came with a late run between rivals to beat Mums Tipple (8/1) and Hyperfocus (16/1).
Horton said: "He's a funny horse, he came to us and he won twice in the spring, then we had no choice but to run him in some deep races.
"We maybe got in a bit of a muddle with him but we thought six and a half (furlongs) would be right up his street and we thought coming back to a flat track would suit. That was the plan and we had this race on our minds for him for a while.
"He can be targeted at all those nice big handicaps and we might even try a Listed race with him at some point."
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McDonald is president of the Professional Jockeys Association and said regarding Thursday's death of Her Majesty The Queen: “It is a massive loss to our sport, it doesn’t need me to say that.
“It’s been a privilege to have a monarch so interested in our sport and it gave people who had no interest in racing, but had an interest in Her Majesty, a reason to get involved.
“Its been massive and I just hope the royal colours continue to appear and have as much luck in the future."
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