Cornelius Lysaght reflections on day three at Royal Ascot including Joe Fanning and Subjectivist winning the Gold Cup

It may not have been quite the quartet of successes for Stradivarius that was widely-anticipated but the Gold Cup still provided a fab four-timer to savour.

Trainer Mark Johnston and his family-led operation in the Middleham racing centre in Yorkshire, have become record-breaking central figures in the story of Royal Ascot – and indeed of British flat racing – over the last three decades.

And their now four wins in the Gold Cup, the Royal meeting’s marathon, two-and-a-half-mile feature since its inception in 1807, and to be fair in other long distance prizes, have themselves been central to that rise to the summit.

Subjectivist – so named by his international economist-owner Dr Jim Walker after a frankly baffling doctrine (to this outsider anyway) within his working world – was following the Johnston stars Double Trigger, in 1995, and Royal Rebel, two years running in 2001 and 2002, into this most hallowed of winners’ circles.

Given a trademark aggressive ride at or near the front by jockey Joe Fanning, 50, – yet another veteran rider thriving in 2021 and cheered in by riding colleagues – the winner of the two-mile Dubai Gold Cup in March positively gobbled up the extra distance having taken a decisive lead with nearly a half-mile still to race.

Famously once Johnston runners grab the initiative, as today’s opponents will affirm, it is very hard to wrestle it back – though having become boxed in, record-chasing Stradivarius never really got the chance to have a go.

Johnston said: “Dubai was the performance of his life [and] I knew that if he could reproduce that he would take an awful lot of beating.

“I was really happy throughout the race – when he is sitting second like that, settled and relaxed, with a horse giving him a beautiful lead in front I thought it was perfect.

“I knew we were going into new territory but he hadn’t asked for an effort, and we knew how he could finish from Dubai and he did that again."

The four-year-old will now be aimed at July’s Goodwood Cup – won by both Double Trigger (three times) and Royal Rebel – but the Johnston team will be hoping for a more straightforward time in the intervening weeks.

“The preparations have not been smooth,” he said. “Forty five minutes after his run in Dubai, he had filling in one leg, and we thought that would be serious – he had lots of time off.

“Then in Middleham last week he skinned both knees and one hock; the only positive was that [the stable’s star filly] Attraction did a similar thing before winning the [2003] Queen Mary here, and it didn’t stop her either.”

After dismounting, Stradivarius’ rider Frankie Dettori said: "I ran into a pocket turning for home. When you get stopped in a two and a half mile race, you never get going again. The winner’s a good winner, but I’d love to have another shot at it."

At Goodwood I imagine.

Elsewhere on the card, Mohaafeth, a late non-runner in the Derby because of rain-softened going, demonstrated the high regard in which he is held by trainer William Haggas looks fully justified with a storming success in the Hampton Court Stakes.

The winning jockey Jim Crowley received a six-day suspension for allowing his mount – owned by the late Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum’s Shadwell Estate Company – to cause interference to runner-up Roman Empire late on.

Sandown’s Eclipse Stakes is now the likely aim for the son of Frankel as he continues a relentless climb up the ladder.

Crowley’s predecessor as the Sheikh’s principal jockey, Paul Hanagan, made an emotional return to the Royal Ascot winners’ enclosure when successful on Perfect Power, trained by his long-term ally Richard Fahey, at the end of a breathless finish to the Norfolk Stakes.

Plenty of River Derwent water has flowed under Malton Bridge near the ever-popular combination’s Yorkshire base since they won the 2010 Windsor Castle Stakes with Marine Commando.

Since then, as well as moving away south to work with the Hamdan operation, before a subsequent return to the fold, Hanagan suffered what many, including himself, feared could be career-ending back injuries in a fall in early 2020.

So today the jockey’s face was swathed in smiles as he explained: "The accident was a pretty bad one, and I’m lucky to be here at all, let alone riding winners. I just appreciate having a second chance, and I have taken it with both hands.”

Lovely stuff.

PS: the big Friday word is that despite it being June 18 it maybe Novemba, from Germany, in the Coronation Stakes.