Aidan O'Brien's 100 winners is acknowledged at Royal Ascot

Aidan O'Brien trains remarkable 100th Royal Ascot winner

Horse Racing

Thu June 18, 2026 · 1h ago

Aidan O’Brien trained the 100th Royal Ascot winner of his remarkable career when Scandinavia won the Gold Cup.

In a terrific tussle with last year's Gold Cup hero Trawlerman, the Ryan Moore-ridden four-year-old dug deep in the final furlong to edge victory. Scandinavia was a fourth success of the week for the Ballydoyle team in Berkshire.

The O'Brien century includes 10 victories in the Gold Cup, four of which came via the remarkable Yeats, while other star names to have won at the meeting for the trainer over the years include Rock Of Gibraltar, Giant’s Causeway, Johannesburg, Fame And Glory, Henrythenavigator, Starspangledbanner, So You Think and Kyprios.

It’s been an eventful Royal Ascot so far for the team with both Christophe Soumillon and Ryan Moore picking up bans following Gstaad’s narrow defeat to Bow Echo in Tuesday's St James’s Palace Stakes. The former was handed an eight-day suspension for "riding his mount in such a way that intended to give an advantage to another horse from the same stable" aboard the front-running Puerto Rico.

Full report: Scandinavia edges Gold Cup thriller

Aidan O'Brien's best Royal Ascot winners

Best two-year-old: Caravaggio (123p)

Great Barrier Reef took Aidan O’Brien’s record number of Coventry Stakes to twelve earlier this week, 29 years after his very first Royal Ascot win which came in the same race with Harbour Master. The best performance among those dozen winners of the meeting’s top two-year-old race came from Caravaggio in 2016, a colt who was Timeform’s highest rated male two-year-old that season. Like his stable’s latest Coventry winner, Caravaggio went to Ascot as the winner of both his starts, including the Marble Hill Stakes at the Curragh where he put up a performance that was already good enough to win most editions of the Coventry. Sent off the 13/8 favourite under Ryan Moore against his 17 rivals, Caravaggio kept his unbeaten record in fine style, bursting through to lead entering the final furlong before storming clear despite hanging right all the while. While he had two and a quarter lengths to spare over runner-up Mehmas, he was value for a fair bit more as he fared much the best of those on his side of the track, the next four home all having raced on the far side. Caravaggio confirmed himself a high-class sprinter when beating Harry Angel and Blue Point in the Commonwealth Cup back at Ascot a year later.

Best sprinter: Starspangledbanner (128)

A handful of Australian imports feature among O’Brien’s hundred Royal Ascot winners and one of the best of those was high-class sprinter Starspangledbanner, winner of what was then the Golden Jubilee Stakes in 2010. A son of Choisir who had famously completed the King’s Stand/Golden Jubilee double for Australia seven years earlier, Starspangledbanner was already a Group 1 winner in Australia and was having only his second start for O’Brien after finishing fifth in the Duke of York Stakes the previous month. He faced a cosmopolitan field at Ascot that included runners trained in France, Hong Kong, the USA and Australia. Racing in the larger stand-side group, Starspangledbanner was always in control once grabbing the stands rail, showing blistering speed and pulling clear in what was briefly course-record time until it was lowered again in the Wokingham little more than half an hour later. Society Rock, who would go one better a year later, was second, with the American-trained Dubai Golden Shaheen winner Kinsale King in third. Rated Timeform’s Best Sprinter in 2010, Starspangledbanner followed up in the July Cup, again under Johnny Murtagh who had also partnered his sire to his Royal Ascot wins.

Starspangledbanner wins at Royal Ascot in his golden summer in 2010

Best miler: Henrythenavigator (131)

O’Brien has won a record nine editions of the St James’s Palace Stakes, including with the likes of Giant’s Causeway and Rock of Gibraltar, but the best of those winners on the day was Henrythenavigator who landed the odds in a vintage renewal in 2008 with a top-class performance. Winner of the Coventry Stakes twelve months earlier, Henrythenavigator completed a Group 1 hat-trick at Ascot following wins in the 2000 Guineas, where he beat New Approach by a nose, and then the Irish 2000 Guineas where he again had too much speed for the subsequent Derby winner. Among his chief rivals in the St James’s Palace were the Poule d’Essai des Poulains winner Falco and the Craven Stakes winner Twice Over but it was the 2000 Guineas fourth Raven’s Pass who ended up giving Henrythenavigator most to do. Producing his now trademark turn of foot on firm ground that suited him ideally after moving through easily, Henrythenavigator had three quarters of a length to spare over Raven’s Pass who closed on him late. There was only a head between them when Henrythenavigator followed up in the Sussex Stakes, but the tables were turned back at Ascot in the autumn in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

Best middle-distance performer: Duke of Marmalade (132)

Just a day after partnering Henrythenavigator in the St James’s Palace, Murtagh got the leg up on another top-class Ballydoyle colt, the year-older Duke of Marmalade, who would become the first of O’Brien’s five Prince of Wales’s Stakes winners. His rating of 132 from that victory also makes it the best performance by any of his trainer’s hundred winners at the Royal meeting. While Duke of Marmalade had made the frame in all six of his races at three, all of them Group 1 contests, he hadn’t managed to get his head front, though had gone closest at Royal Ascot when beaten a neck by stablemate Excellent Art in the St James’s Palace. It was a very different story at four, however, as the Prince of Wales’s Stakes was the centrepiece of a Group 1 five-timer for Duke of Marmalade, with his four-length win at Royal Ascot being the pick of those victories. Wins in the Prix Ganay and Tattersalls Gold Cup had shown that Duke of Marmalade had improved at four, and he confirmed that in no uncertain terms as the even-money favourite at Ascot, readily settling matters to pull clear of the Lockinge runner-up Phoenix Tower. Rated Timeform’s Best Older Male in 2008, Duke of Marmalade went on to win the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Juddmonte International.

Best stayer: Order of St George (128)

As well as bringing up O'Brien's century, Scandinavia took O'Brien's record number of Gold Cups to ten, four of those provided by high-class stayer Yeats. But none of his performances quite matched that of the 2016 winner Order of St George whose 128 figure that year was a couple of pounds better than the pick of Yeats’ wins. Order of St George had been the only three-year-old in the line-up when annihilating his rivals by upwards of eleven lengths in the Irish St Leger on his final start the previous season under Joseph O’Brien, while brother Donnacha was in the saddle when Order of St George readily made a successful reappearance in the Saval Beg Stakes at Leopardstown a couple of weeks before the Gold Cup. Conditions were on the soft side at Ascot, as they had been for the Irish St Leger, and Order of St George, the clear pick on form, was sent off at a shade of odds on against his 16 rivals, this time under Ryan Moore. Stamina was tested to the full and, despite getting shuffled back with over half a mile to run, Order of St George ran out a most authoritative winner by three lengths from the Sagaro Stakes winner Mizzou. Incidentally, O’Brien had reached his half-century of Royal Ascot winners earlier that afternoon when Even Song won the Ribblesdale.

Royal Ascot Day Three

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Aidan O'Brien trains remarkable 100th Royal Ascot winner

Full report: Scandinavia edges Gold Cup thriller