Royal Ascot reaction: David Ord's takeaways from the five great days

IRELAND DOMINATE THE JUVENILE DIVISION

Question. Who was the only British trainer to saddle a two-year-old winner at Royal Ascot?

Answer: Mick Appleby.

In the day and age of request-a-bets that would have been some price, but it was a case of slim pickings for the home team throughout the week in this particular division.

No handler won more than one – Aidan O’Brien starting in style with River Tiber in the Coventry Stakes but suffering a series of near-misses thereafter.

Crimson Advocate won the Queen Mary for George Weaver and America and Big Evs, more on him later, the Windsor Castle for the resurgent and excellent Appleby.

From there though we had three more two-year-old races and the trophies for all three headed back across the Irish Sea.

Adrian Murray did his best not to look too surprised when 150/1 chance Valiant Force won the Norfolk, Porta Fortuna secured the Albany for Donnacha O’Brien and Snellen the Chesham for Gavin Cromwell.

Karl Burke and Richard Fahey were two of the trainers with high hopes of their juveniles heading down to Berkshire. It didn’t quite happen for them but…

NORTHERN STARS SHINE BRIGHT

When Triple Time won the opening Queen Anne for the Kevin Ryan team, he set the ball rolling on a fine week for the north.

He was a surprise winner – as was Big Evs in the Windsor Castle – but that colt was a poignant one too.

Winning owner Paul Teasdale said: “I named Big Evs after someone very special, a man who I knew for 40 years, but he died in November. He was Paul Evans – we called him Evs and he was a big guy. We went racing together for 25 years and so to win this means so much.”

As Big Evs passed the line many were scrambling to find him on their racecards to try and put a name to the silks. But some knew exactly who the winning colt was. Clearly news of his sparkling piece of work with King’s Stand third Annaf had filtered through in advance as he returned a shortening 20/1.

The big three-year-old sprint of the meeting fell to one our friends in the north and a rapidly progressive one. Shaquille tries his best at both ends of his races – to lose it with a tardy start – then win it with a late charge. We saw both tricks on Friday, but he was far too strong for Little Big Bear in the closing stages.

What a moment it was for the training team of Julie Camacho and husband Steve Brown, a partnership who do so well with the horses they have. It was wonderful to see them have a day in the sun on Friday and prove once again given the ammunition…

It might have been a silver and bronze medal for the northern flagbearer Highfield Princess but she ran two mighty races in defeat.

She was carried out on her shield and carried left by the drifting Bradsell in Tuesday’s King’s Stand Stakes, so much so that Jason Hart clearly fancied his chances of getting the race in the stewards’ room, leaving nothing behind in his animated evidence.

It fell on deaf ears as it was always likely to, but he had another go in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes and his partner flew the start and proceeded to dominate the stands-side group.

Sadly for her and those who sent her off the favourite, the key action was unfolding down the centre of the track as Khaadem overhauled Sacred to snare the final Group One of the week.

STEEL THE REAL DEAL

The quick turnaround from Epsom, a second run in a month on quick ground, the razzmatazz of Royal Ascot on only his fourth career start, they were a few of the questions King Of Steel had to answer in the King Edward VII.

He did so with aplomb. True most of those in against him were comfortably behind the son of Wootton Basset in the Derby but the way he came from the rear of the field in a race run at a stop-start gallop and then put it to bed with the same change of gear that fleetingly carried him clear of Auguste Rodin on the first Saturday of June was exciting.

Afterwards Amo Racing chief Kia Joorabchian said it was Roger Varian who wanted to head to Ascot rather than wait for the Irish Derby. The trainer seemed a little taken aback – insisting he was “happy to go along with it” but whoever pressed the launch button it worked a treat,

And they have a horse to go to war with here. He’s still raw, just look at how he lugged right off the bridle once in front, and it will be fascinating to see where they go now. A rematch with his Epsom conqueror could be on the cards somewhere down the line and it’s no foregone conclusion that the fleet-footed Derby winner will again come out on top.

One for whom rolling the big dice didn’t work for was Al Asifah. She looked a filly of Group One potential when sauntering clear of her field in a Listed race at Goodwood 11 days before the Ribblesdale.

She was then expected to head to the Irish Oaks but bounced out of the race so well the Thursday Group Two was added onto her itinerary. She ran flat. Maybe a combination of the proximity of the two races, the fast ground and wide passage through the race.

They’ll dust themselves down and rebuild. She’s not one to give up on yet.

LOAD TO WORRY ABOUT?

A Royal Ascot two-year-old is high on most owner’s shopping list at the yearling and breeze-up sales nowadays. And there are plenty of them judged by the field sizes.

20 faced the starter for the Coventry, 26 in the Queen Mary, the Windsor Castle attracted 23 and the Norfolk 14.

And those fields contained plenty of horses with only one start under their belt – so little wonder that the loading process took a while.

In the Queen Mary for example it was well over four minutes before the fillies were all in a line – meaning those who went forward early were in there for a good while.

It might or might not be a coincidence that the first two home, Crimson Advocate and Relief Rally, were among the last four to load – and third home Beautiful Diamond was late too.

I don’t know how to level the playing field but let’s be honest if you’re an owner or trainer staring down the track or at the big screen how happy would you be to see your horse led in early as the majority of others still circled around behind?

Maybe more stalls handlers could help – or maybe it doesn’t actually have as big an impact as the Wednesday feature suggests. Or maybe we’ll have a load advantage symbol on the racecards somewhere between the draw and news of cheekpieces and wind operations in the years to come.

DEAR SIR OR MADAM…

The Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes attracted record World Pool stakes for a British race.

I don’t know if the gigantic betting partnership have a customer service department, if they do, then it will have attracted a record number of customer contacts too.

After the debacle of the late-opening stalls in the Dash at Epsom it was pointed out how the rules regarding the ability to declare a horse a non-runner in Britain differ from those elsewhere in the world.

And they still do. Cannonball – with a stalls handler holding on as the gates opened – reared backwards and after his rivals had taken seven or eight strides, finally emerged minus Danny Tudhope.

There was a lengthy stewards’ enquiry after which it was deemed “Having reviewed the start, the Stewards were satisfied that CANNONBALL (AUS) was mounted as the start was affected, and was therefore deemed to be a runner.”

They say you have to be in it to win it. To the watching millions around the world, was the Australian sprinter really in it?

WATHNAN RACING UP AND RUNNING

Flexing your financial muscles before Royal Ascot is nothing new. The Goffs London Sale is specifically there for millionaires and billionaires who feel they are a horse or two short of a good week and are ready for a last-minute piece of shopping.

It’s not for the faint-hearted, subsequent Coventry Stakes fourth Givemethebeatyoys changing hands for £1.1million this year for example.

But not every transaction has to be in the public eye and Richard Brown’s business for Wathnan Racing of late has been small but select. And I presume expensive.

Three horses have carried the owner’s silks in 2023 so far namely Greenham winner Isaac Shelby, purchased before finishing second in the French 2000 Guineas, Gregory and Courage Mon Ami.

The latter pair were both unbeaten, trained by John and Thady Gosden, and clearly going places before switching ownership in private deals. And there will have been many a nought on the bank transfer.

They were previously owned by Normandie Stud and Anthony Oppenheimer respectively, major players themselves and clearly made offers they couldn’t refuse.

And in terms of impact Brown could hardly have hoped for better, Gregory making all to win the Queen’s Vase and provide Frankie Dettori with a first winner of the week.

Courage Mon Ami raised the bar even higher when providing the Italian with a winning farewell to the Gold Cup.

The name of those behind the new owners were something of a mystery until the Racing Post’s Sales correspondent James Thomas revealed it was the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with a Friday exclusive.

The family are already well established in the horse racing world, but the Emir’s first venture could hardly have got off to a better start. These may have been new colours at Royal Ascot 2023, but we could be about to see a lot more of them at the top table in the years to come.

ANOTHER BLUE WEEK FOR APPLEBY TEAM

4, 8, 4, 6, 14, 3, 6, 6, 24, 29, 3, 8, 9, 17, 7, 12, 6, 3

A disappointing Royal Ascot for Charlie Appleby follows hot on the heels of drawing a blank in the first four Classics.

There was a midweek double at Newcastle and a Saturday one at Newmarket to keep things ticking over but at the top table this season the trainer's runners are coming up short.

The three-year-olds look a little thin in terms of quality this time around, which happens, and the older horses who often cover up the cracks in such circumstances, continue to disappoint.

Neither Modern Games or Native Trail ever looked like winning the Queen Anne while Adayar seemed ill-at-ease on the ground as he got a rear view of Mostahdaf in the Prince Of Wales’s.

Yibir in the Gold Cup was a roll of the dice – and the sixth spot behind Courage Mon Ami, after meeting with interference and under a ride very much geared towards getting home, still left questions over whether he can be reinvented as a stayer.

The handicaps have been a happy hunting ground with progressive and unexposed horses in the recent past but not this time while there wasn’t a single two-year-old runner for the Moulton Paddocks team all week.

All in all – by his own glittering standards – it was a week to forget for Appleby – and a start to the season that won’t take up much room in any future autobiography. But the weight in numbers is still there and when the revival does arrive, you sense it will be through the youngsters still learning their trade on the Newmarket gallops rather than the established performers who are starting to look a little exposed.

WE’LL MISS HIM WHEN HE’S GONE

We had to end with him didn’t we. The farewell tour has many more venues to visit but you sense, as he sat in the weighing room after partnering Knockbrex in the Golden Gates Handicap – Frankie Dettori would have felt it more than anyone.

This was the end of an era.

Lester Piggott’s numbers at the big meeting will surely never be threatened but the Italian has dominated this fixture in different ways to even that great man.

He’s front and centre of everything marketing and PR wise, he’s the reason people cram around the parade ring and winners’ enclosure, the one name on the racecard that once-a-year racegoers and TV viewers recognise.

We hung the whole meeting on his shoulders and while there was no farewell famous five, super six or magnificent seven, there were still magical moments.

0 from ten for the week before making all aboard Gregory, the sense of relief was evident as his partner ran his rivals ragged from the front.

And relief turned to adulation – they dashed to the winners’ enclosure to welcome him back, there were rapturous applause from the massed public ranks– and from the man in the saddle – a moment of mutual appreciation.

Courage Mon Ami’s Gold Cup win was the defining moment of the week – a chance to celebrate Dettori in the showpiece event of the entire five days. In the end Coppice goes into the record books as his final Royal Ascot winner, Knockbrex his last Royal Ascot ride.

There are those who feel he’s still enjoying It too much to call-it-a-day now, too many good horses to ride.

But think back 12 months – to the jockey leaving Ascot on the Saturday evening and straight into a sabbatical away from the Gosden team, retirement seemingly set to be forced upon him.

A year on so much has changed. He’s going out on his own terms and to his own schedule. They say bow out with the audience demanding more and he’s doing just that.

The Newmarket July Meeting is the next stop and the July Cup, the one domestic Group One to have eluded him during a remarkable career, the final day highlight.

Kinross, expected to be his partner in the last chance saloon, could finish only seventh behind Khaadem on Saturday but it was his reappearance and he could come forward.

There are chapters still to be written – but the Royal Ascot one, containing remarkable highs and lows and 81 winners across more than three decades, is complete.

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