Earth Shot (4/1) finished with a flourish to win the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes under James Doyle on day three at Royal Ascot.
Trained by William Haggas for Wathnan Racing, the daughter of Time Test won an eventful race that saw Hector Crouch depart from Lady Roisia just after the stalls opened.
The loose horse charged clear with stablemate Venetia and they set up a frantic finish, with Joseph O'Brien's Johanna Walsh hitting the front on the turn for home.
She hung in there for a long way with the loose horse as a target, but Earth Shot got rolling in the final furlong to win by a head in a tight finish.
Johanna Walsh (9/1) was second with Gilded Prize (5/1) third for Francis Graffard and Oisin Murphy.
Legacy Link, sent off the 13/8 favourite on the back of finishing second in the Betfred Oaks, could only manage seventh.
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Haggas said: “We were wary of the favourite, and the French filly, but I’m delighted with her, and I thought she did very well.
“We won one in the last century which was bred to Tony Hershaw and Lester (Piggott), my father-in-law, and he told Michael Hills not to leave the fence, and if you ever get a chance to watch it he never left the fence and got up on the line at 33/1.
“I thought she possibly should have won at Goodwood. She has always been a beautiful filly and I’ve always said she wants soft ground.
“Fair play to William Buick, she ran second to another one of ours last year in a maiden and he said she was pretty good, and they always say he knows what he is talking about.
“We always had hopes that she was good. I guess for a middle distance filly winning the Ribblesdale is second best to winning the Oaks, but it is a hell of a prize to win.
“James and I go back a long way. He used to ride for us before he went to Godolphin. He is an excellent rider and a very nice man.
“I need to watch it again, as when there is a loose horse those jump jockeys know what to do with one as they usually push it out at the next fence, but Flat jockeys it is a bit of a new phenomenon for them.
“I thought she stayed really well. I didn’t think she was going to get the leader, but I thought she stayed really well.
“Goodwood is pretty close to Epsom, and she needed to win at Goodwood by a few lengths and she got beaten, so it was always the Ribblesdale then.
“Where she goes next I don’t know, but it is just possible she might go for the Irish Oaks.
“We had a winner for their Majesties (Lorca's Waltz), which is always a nice thing to do during Ascot week when their focus is on racing.
“Unfortunately it was not here, but it was at Beverley and he became our three thousandth Flat winner which I’m very proud of. We have got one employee who has been there from the very start and I’m very proud of him as he has seen it all.
“We are very proud of it, but what you have to remember is no one gives a hoot apart from the person involved. It is great for Maureen and I, and the people that work for us, but in a year’s time some will leave and they won’t know if we have had three thousand one hundred or three thousand two hundred.
“The only people who care are the people who do it. Everyone else is yesterday’s news.
“If I have one hundred winners a year I will have to train until I’m eighty six to beat Mark Johnston and I’m not going to!
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