Five takeaways from Royal Ascot from Ryan Moore's class to Frankie Dettori's farewell

1. Ryan Moore is class

It wasn’t just his six winners, and his 10th Royal Ascot Leading Jockey award. (His first Leading Jockey award was only in 2010, which means that he has won 10 of the 14 awards since 2010.) But Ryan Moore exuded class all week.

There were 35 races at Royal Ascot, and Ryan Moore rode in all 35. That is quite remarkable in itself. Frankie Dettori had 25 rides, William Buick and Oisín Murphy had 28 rides each. Ryan Moore had seven more rides than the next busiest rider. But, even more remarkable is that it was very difficult to point to any one of the 35 horses that Ryan Moore rode, at any stage of any race, and say that he or she was in the incorrect position.

Of course, it helps when you are riding the best horse. It is probable that most riders would probably have won on Vauban. Warm Heart won the Ribblesdale easily in the end, but she benefitted from the ride that she got. Moore had her in the front rank from early, but when Sea Of Roses wanted to go faster on the run up the side of the track, he was happy to allow that filly go on, he was happy that he was going as fast as he wanted to go, happy that he would pick up his rival again in the home straight, which he did. A battle for the lead at that stage of the race could have cost Warm Heart the two and a half lengths by which she won.

He was happy to be well back in the field in the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes on Okita Soushi. Of course, the fact that they went fast up front was a positive for Okita Soushi, but if Moore had forced his horse to go any faster any earlier, even though he is a horse who stays well, that probably would have been detrimental to his chance of winning. By contrast, he kept it simple of Dawn Rising in the Queen Alexandra, always prominent on a horse who he knew had lots of stamina, a Monksfield Hurdle winner.

As well as his six winners, Ryan Moore had eight seconds, two thirds and five fourths. Twenty-one of the 35 horses that he rode at Royal Ascot finished in the first four. That’s 60%, and that is also quite remarkable.

2. Doyle had a week to remember

Hollie Doyle had another Royal Ascot to remember. She made her Royal Ascot breakthrough in 2020 when she rode Scarlet Dragon to victory in the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes, and she had another winner in 2021 (Amtiyaz in the Copper Horse Handicap), and another in 2022 (Bradsell in the Coventry Stakes). This year, she had three.

There was Bradsell again, this time in the King’s Stand Stakes, and Rhythm N Hooves in the Palace of Holyroodhouse Handicap, and Saint Lawrence in the Wokingham. All three on the straight track.

Among Hollie Doyle’s rides at Royal Ascot 2023 was a 150/1 shot (not that they can’t win), a 100/1 shot, an 80/1 shot (not that they can’t win either), two 50/1 shots and a 40/1 shot. The shortest-price horse she rode was sent off at 8/1. Based on the collective SPs of her rides, she should have ridden 1.02 winners. She rode 3.00. She went way beyond expections. Then on Sunday, she went to Ffos Las and won the Class 4 seven-and-a-half-furlong handicap on Merlin The Wizard.

3. Irish trainers made a mark

There were 12 Irish-trained winners at Royal Ascot this year, and that is a record.

Irish trainers’ contribution was as wide as it was deep too. When there were 10 Irish-trained winners at Royal Ascot in 2016, Aidan O’Brien was responsible for seven of them. When there were five in 2020, Aidan O’Brien supplied all five.

Aidan O’Brien was dominant again this year. His four winners and six seconds took him to his 12th Leading Trainer award, and took him to 85 winners in total, past Sir Michael Stoute in the all-time list. It was a landmark week for the perennial champion trainer.

Two other O’Briens got on the score sheet this year too, Joseph won the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes with Okita Soushi and the Queen Alexandra Stakes with Dawn Rising, two more to go with State Of Rest’s Prince of Wales’s Stakes win last year, while Donnacha sent out Porta Fortuna to win the Albany Stakes.

Willie Mullins won the Copper Horse Handicap with Vauban, and Jessica Harrington won the Kensington Palace Handicap with Villanova Queen, a deserved first Royal Ascot winner for Ireland’s champion jockey Colin Keane. Adrian Murray sent out Valiant Force to spring a 150/1 shock in the Norfolk Stakes, his first Royal Ascot winner with just his fourth Royal Ascot runner, and Gavin Cromwell had his second Royal Ascot winner, after Quick Suzy’s Queen Mary in 2021, when Snellen just held on in the Chesham Stakes under Gary Carroll, who was winning on his only ride of the week.

Chris Hayes also won on his only ride of the week, Tahiyra in the Coronation Stakes, a first Royal Ascot winner for the rider, an 18th for trainer Dermot Weld. It is exactly a hald a centrury since Weld sent out Klairvimy to win the King Edward VII Stakes. He had five more Royal Ascot winners before Chris Hayes was born, and he has had 12 more since, including Tahiyra, now a three-time Group 1 winner.

Eight Irish trainers got on the scoresheet, and that is a record too.

4. Go high over a mile and a half

There were three races with more than six runners run over a mile and a half during the week, and the winners emerged, respectively, from stalls 21, 16 and nine.

It’s a very small sample size admittedly, but the results of the three races, the King George V Handicap, the Ribblesdale Stakes and the Duke of Edinburgh Handicap, provided further proof, if further proof were needed, that you want to be drawn high. Of the 15 first-five places available, first to fifth in each of the three races, only five of them were filled by horses drawn nine or lower, and eight of them were filled by horses drawn 16 or higher.

Not only is it not a disadvantage to be drawn high over a mile and a half at Ascot as things stand, it’s actually an advantage.

5. Frankie will be missed

Frankie Dettori will be some loss to racing. That was worryingly apparent throughout the week.

It was a pity that he couldn’t go out on a high at Royal Ascot, it is a pity that Knockbrex finished down the field in the Golden Gates Handicap, but it was still a hugely successful week for the rider who has made Ascot his playground. Four winners for the week, through the 80-winner barrier, and a ninth Gold Cup on the appropriately-named Courage Mon Ami.

www.donnmcclean.com

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