David Ord sets the scene for Royal Ascot where for one week only off-the-track dramas can be forgotten. We've a meeting to celebrate.
Thank goodness for Royal Ascot.
It means for one week we can step away from the impotent leadership of the sport where even the opening gambit in the battle against small fields can’t get beyond the first rung of the ladder.
It never will if the BHA choose not to support their own proposal of reducing the fixture list by 300 races. That’s less than one a day.
And we don’t need to discuss all-male Derby dinners, trips to Tramps with John Gosden and Lord Lloyd Webber or whoever it was who gave the green light to Derby day fireworks.
For all our travails away from the racecourse, on the track itself, the sport continues to deliver.
And next week we have Baaeed kicking us off in the Queen Anne Stakes. He sits alongside Kingman as the best miler since Frankel on Timeform ratings.
In 2012 that behemoth hit a 147 in performance figure in beating Excelebration by 11 lengths, taking racing ratings to a place few thought they could go.
This year’s superstar won’t threaten that number on Tuesday – a repeat of his Lockinge performance at Newbury would suffice to claim another Group One – but all eyes then switch to Coroebus.
He carried the Godolphin white cap to victory in the QIPCO 2000 Guineas. He’ll be in the Royal Blue on Tuesday and can book his place in the Sussex Stakes with another fluent display.
Maybe he’ll meet Baaeed there – or maybe Homeless Songs who showed the sort of turn of foot to win the Irish 1000 Guineas that only a select few possess.
She’ll need to back that up in a Coronation Stakes of the ages on Friday in against last year’s leading two-year-old filly Inspiral, 1000 Guineas heroine Cachet, French 1000 winner Mangoustine and American raiders Spendarella and Pizza Bianca.
Then there’s Discoveries, a daughter of Alpha Lupi who has already produced two Coronation Stakes winners in Alpha Centauri and Alpine Star. Family honour is at stake here.
For the sprinters it’s about international domination.
Think back to Takeover Target, Choisir and Black Caviar. Think of Undrafted and Lady Aurelia.
Then think of Golden Pal and Nature Strip and a tear up to light up any meeting in Tuesday’s King’s Stand. Britain’s standing on the world racing stage may be diminishing but the best of America and Australia are here to find out who’s the fastest horse on the planet.
Then on Saturday Home Affairs, trained like Nature Strip by Chris Waller, takes centre stage in the Platinum Jubilee. But he too has an American speedball to contend with in the shape of Campanelle, bidding for a third successive win at the meeting.
They set a very high bar for the domestic sprinters but in the Commonwealth Cup perhaps Perfect Power or Tenebrism can take their own first steps back towards sprinting stardom.
It’s baby steps still for the two-year-olds but with Wesley Ward represented – and Aidan O’Brien having abundant riches in the division with the likes of Alfred Munnings, Blackbeard and Statuette – fireworks (of the metaphorical kind) are guaranteed.
There’s strength in the home ranks too, Amo Racing are an emerging force and have plenty of ammunition to fire, Noble Style looked a potential top-notcher for Godolphin on debut at Ascot and Richard Fahey can’t hide his excitement over Clearpoint.
It’s all ahead of them at the moment but Thursday might represent the final act in Stradivarius’ golden career.
He’s bidding for a fourth win in the Gold Cup having won the 2018 to 2020 renewals.
He’s eight now – an age when most champions have either departed for the covering sheds or a happy retirement – but his fire still burns – once the testosterone levels dip after a lap or two of the parade ring.
It’s somewhat depressing to think he seemingly makes no appeal as a commercial stallion. They want speed not stamina and it will be jumps mares who make their way to him in 2023.
But why? He’s won in every season he’s raced – Group races every year since he was three, seven at the highest level. He’s been remarkable.
Winning a fourth Gold Cup at his age – matching the record set by Yeats – would be a wonderful achievement.
But he needs help. Help from above to blow any rain clouds away, dry out the ground and take the advantage away from Trueshan.
Then there’s Kyprios, who like Yeats hails from Ballydoyle and is beginning to look like a Group One stayer.
He has younger legs but Stradivarius is streetwise, maybe too much so nowadays, but he’s still the headline act in this division.
Sir Michael Stoute is again after Desert Crown's Cazoo Derby win. And in Bay Bridge he has the sort of project people will point to when referencing the trainer's midas touch when the curtain finally comes down on his illustrious career.
Wednesday's Prince Of Wales's Stakes will be the four-year-old's seventh career start. It's been a tale of gradual progression from making his racecourse debut in the October of his two-year-old career at Yarmouth.
His first win came the following spring on the tapeta of Newcastle, that was followed by a fluent success in the London Gold Cup on handicap debut at Newbury. And from there he's gently rolled through another York handicap, a Listed race at Newmarket in the autumn and the Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown last month.
It was that five lengths thumping of Mostahdaf that seemed to confirm there was a Group One engine lurking beneath his powerful frame but there'll need to be. Japanese horses have been on a real roll since the Breeders' Cup and Shahryar, a son of the mighty Deep Impact, ticked off the Sheema Classic at Meydan in March to book his place here.
They travel from afar to Royal Ascot. From five furlongs to two-and-a-half miles, from Lambourn to Melbourne, they’re all here for the party.
So let’s savour it. For one week only may all in the garden appear rosy.
