John Ingles reflects on some of the bloodstock stories that emerged from Royal Ascot.
Night of Thunder sire of the week
If reigning champion sire Night of Thunder retains his title at the end of the year, it will owe a lot to his results on the first two days of Royal Ascot. His big hope on day one was Bow Echo who duly kept his unbeaten record in the St James’s Palace Stakes, albeit with much less to spare than in the 2000 Guineas. Earlier, Night of Thunder had three runners in the opening Queen Anne Stakes where his Group 2 winners of last year, More Thunder and Zeus Olympios, looked his best chances, but while they both made the frame, his third representative Ten Bob Tony caused the shock of the week in beating More Thunder at odds of 50/1.
Ten Bob Tony’s form might have made him an outsider, but you don’t need to look too far back in his pedigree to find relatives who also excelled at Royal Ascot. His grandam was a half-sister to top-class French sprinter Last Tycoon, winner of the King’s Stand Stakes forty years ago, and to the dam of the 2011 Coronation Stakes winner Immortal Verse. Immortal Verse is the dam of Henri Matisse, runner-up in last year’s St James’s Palace, and she’s also the dam of Aix La Chapelle who had been favourite for Thursday’s Chesham Stakes but had to be withdrawn at the start – more on him below.
Twenty-four hours later, Night of Thunder had his third Group 1 winner of the week when Ombudsman won the Prince of Wales’s Stakes for the second year running and with even more authority than twelve months ago. Ombudsman had been instrumental in Night of Thunder becoming champion sire last year and his earnings potential, along with Bow Echo’s, for the remainder of the season will be key to Night of Thunder being champion again. Night of Thunder’s total earnings from those three Group 1 races came to more than £1.6m, almost doubling his whole season’s earnings as a result, and taking him past Frankel to head the sires’ championship.
Night of Thunder made it four wins at the meeting with the victory on Saturday of Lost Boys who continued his progression through the handicap ranks in the Golden Gates Stakes.
Coventry Stakes a tale of two sires
A field of 21 went to post for Tuesday’s Coventry Stakes but just two sires – No Nay Never and Mehmas – were responsible for nearly half the line-up between them, with No Nay Never having four runners and Mehmas five. Both were smart two-year-olds themselves – No Nay Never won the Norfolk and Mehmas was second in the Coventry - and both were champion first-season sires, but they’ve had widely contrasting fortunes at Royal Ascot as sires. The latest Coventry again highlighted that fact, with No Nay Never’s son Great Barrier Reef getting the better of Adaay of Scarlett who fared best of the Mehmas quintet.
By the end of the week, No Nay Never had taken his total of Royal Ascot two-year-old winners to seven with the victory of the George Boughey-trained Libertango in the Albany Stakes, the first of that seven not trained by Aidan O’Brien. From 37 two-year-old runners at the meeting between 2018 and 2025, No Nay Never had already won the full of set of juvenile sprints thanks to Arizona (Coventry), Meditate (Albany), Little Big Bear (Windsor Castle), Charles Darwin (Norfolk) and True Love (Queen Mary).
Mehmas, on the other hand, somehow remains without a Royal Ascot winner of any age. He didn’t have his first two-year-old runners until two years after No Nay Never but despite more chances, his Royal Ascot record in that age group between 2020 and 2025 reads 0 for 47. Adaay of Scarlett isn’t the first to go close, though, as Mehmas had already had a Coventry runner-up, Persian Force in 2022, while Wise Approach and Awaken were second in the Norfolk (beaten by No Nay Never’s Charles Darwin!) and Albany respectively last year.
No Nay Never completed a quick double on Tuesday with his three-year-old Mission Central beating mostly older sprinters in the King Charles III Stakes. Mission Central didn’t run at Royal Ascot himself at two, being absent between April and August of last year, but he did win the new two-year-old race that opens Champions Day in October.
One race which the offspring of neither No Nay Never nor Mehmas will be able to win from now on is the Windsor Castle Stakes which is no longer open to the progeny of sires who won only at sprint trips.
Victorious in the Queen Mary – despite her pedigree
One consequence of Ballydoyle’s strength in Royal Ascot’s two-year-old races is that they sometimes have to run more than one horse in the same race, and it turned out that Ryan Moore was on the wrong son of No Nay Never in the Coventry, partnering Confucius who was sixth. But ‘the lads’ managed to split up their two best fillies, with Victorious going for the Queen Mary over five furlongs and Sun Goddess running over six in the Albany in which she finished second.
Victorious seemed to have drawn the short straw because her two wins had come at Naas over a fraction short of six furlongs and her pedigree is anything but that of a five-furlong performer. It’s very much to her credit, therefore, that she kept her unbeaten record dropping back in trip (and from a low draw, a handicap most of the week), though she surely won’t be running over the minimum trip again. I’m sure she’d have been in the Albany if it hadn’t been for connections having Sun Goddess to factor in as well. In fact, Victorious’ grandam Lillie Langtry had finished second in the Albany after winning the same Group 3 at Naas beforehand, but she went one better at Royal Ascot at three when winning the Coronation Stakes.
Also successful in the Matron Stakes, Lillie Langtry was very smart (Timeform rating 120) and became an excellent broodmare for Coolmore, with repeat matings with Galileo resulting in, among others, the Oaks winners Minding and Tuesday. Minding had also won the 1000 Guineas beforehand, and she never ran at a mile and a half again despite her Oaks win, even dropping back to a mile successfully at the end of the season in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.
While Heaven On Earth was nothing like as good as her Oaks-winning sisters – her only win came in a maiden at Limerick – that was over eleven furlongs, so it’s a surprise that her daughter Victorious is quite as speedy as she is. Her sire Wootton Bassett did get a Prix de l’Abbaye winner, Wooded, but those bred on the very popular Wootton Bassett/Galileo cross like Victorious include Causeway who was a second winner of the week for his late sire in Friday’s King Edward VII Stakes. He’s from another very successful Coolmore family, that of Magical, Rhododendron and Auguste Rodin.
Wootton Bassett has had a Royal Ascot two-year-old winner before, the 2023 Coventry winner River Tiber, but he was from a speedy family. Victorious might not be an Oaks filly like her dam’s sisters, but she could easily take more after her grandam or 1000 Guineas-winning stablemate True Love who was last year’s Queen Mary winner.
Ladies’ day double for Justify
I wonder what American observers made of their most recent Triple Crown hero siring the winner of Europe’s most prestigious staying contest. After all, most American horses would be running on fumes if asked to go any further than just half the Gold Cup distance. Justify’s son Scandinavia had already shown reserves of stamina of course, winning the St Leger and Goodwood Cup, but the Gold Cup demanded still more, especially up against such a thorough stayer as last year’s winner Trawlerman.
No surprise then that Scandinavia became the first horse with a ‘USA’ suffix to win the Gold Cup for more than thirty years, the previous one being Lord Huntingdon’s dual winner Drum Taps, a son of Dixieland Band, who was successful in 1992 and 1993. While Justify stayed well by American standards as the winner of the Belmont Stakes over a mile and a half, it’s not immediately obvious from Scandinavia’s pedigree why he gets an extreme trip.
I covered his family's pedigree in more detail here, though suffice to say his dam is a half-sister to Giant’s Causeway, a Royal Ascot winner in the St James’s Palace, while Giant’s Causeway’s sister You’resothrilling (who was second in the Albany) also produced a St James’s Palace winner, Gleneagles, among her numerous smart or better foals. However, Giant’s Causeway did stay well for a son of Storm Cat, being at least as good over ten furlongs, and it’s worth remembering too that Giant’s Causeway even sired a Gold Cup winner of his own, Rite of Passage, successful for Dermot Weld in 2010.
Aidan O’Brien has made no secret of how highly he regards Justify as a sire following the exploits of his Derby-winning son City of Troy two years ago, and he was no doubt hoping that Gold Cup day would get off to a good start with another of his sons Aix La Chapelle – one of ten two-year-olds by Justify reportedly in training at Ballydoyle this year - made favourite for the Chesham Stakes.
But even in that one’s last-minute absence, Justify supplied not just the winner but the runner-up as well, with the Fozzy Stack-trained Nola Soul beating the Joseph O’Brien newcomer On Just Terms. The big, scopey Nola Soul was bred in Kentucky by John Gunther who was also the breeder of Justify, while there’s a Royal Ascot connection on his dam’s side as he’s from the family of Without Parole who won the St James’s Palace Stakes in the Gunthers’ colours in 2018.
Broodmare exploit
By my reckoning, eleven of the week’s winners were out of mares who achieved a Timeform rating of 100 or more. Among those mares are Group 1 winners Bateel and Izzi Top whose sons Map of Stars and Opportunity were the winners of the Wolferton Stakes and Duke of Edinburgh Stakes respectively.
But the broodmare deserving the most plaudits is surely Lealas Daughter, an unraced daughter of top-class miler Excelebration. A half-sister to the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Obviously, Lealas Daughter has had only two foals to race so far, yet remarkably both of those are now winners of 30-runner handicaps at Royal Ascot over the straight mile. What are the chances of that?
Two years ago, her daughter Soprano won the Sandringham Stakes (having been third in the Albany at two) for George Boughey, while on Thursday Moonfall followed in Soprano’s hoofprints by winning the Britannia Stakes for the same stable. Incidentally, Moonfall was the first of two winners of the week from the first crop of Starman whose daughter Venetian Sun won the Commonwealth Cup the next day.
