Highland Avenue struck a blow for the Godolphin older horses when running away with the Earthlight Darley Stakes, completing a Newmarket treble for Charlie Appleby and William Buick.
Two-year-old stablemates Ancient Wisdom and Arabian Crown did much to lift the spirits of the Moulton Paddocks team and the dashing grey added the icing on the cake with a career-best display.
Sent off as the 11/4 favourite he was always travelling strongly close to the stands' rail and settled matters quickly when Buick asked him to approaching the furlong pole.
It was quickly a question of how far would he win by? The answer four lengths with Silver Sword (22/1) coming through to take second ahead of Roaadobarg (7/1) and Spirit Dancer.
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Appleby said: “Fair play to him he as he led all those good horses like Adayar and Hurricane Lane earlier in the year, and he came up here and led Adayar in a gallop before he won, so coming back to this track on this ground we were confident he would run a big race and he deserved to win one himself.
“He came up here and won the Feilden as a three-year-old. He is bred to be a good horse. He has not been a frustrating horse, but after the Feilden we sort of lost our way slightly. This year he has been a hell of a lead horse for us, and that is predominately what his job has been for the season.
“We came to this time of year and we felt the race was there to suit him in respects to the trip and ground how it was turning out to be so we thought he would be a player today. It is great for him to win a race like that as he ran a solid race in the Diomed to be fair and the last run at Newbury we decided to change our tactics and hold him up thinking he might enjoy it a bit more running at horses, but it didn’t work.
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