3 minute read

Frankie Dettori registered his first winner of Royal Ascot 2019 and 61st success overall at the Royal Meeting following the victory of 18/1 shot Raffle Prize in the £110,000 G2 Queen Mary Stakes.

Trained by Mark Johnston, the two-year-old daughter of Slade Power wore down American raider and long-time leader Kimari (13/2), trained by Wesley Ward, to score by a head in the five-furlong contest.

Johnston, saddling his 44th winner at Royal Ascot and first of the week, said: "Raffle Prize  did it well today. People always ask you in the build-up to Royal Ascot about what your chances are at the Royal Meeting.

"However, you can never know your chance, particularly in these two-year-old races where most of the field are effectively maiden winners. There is nothing in the race with a great deal of form to go on.

"All you can do is run your best horses at the right time. Coming into Royal Ascot, we thought she deserved to be here, but you don't know how good your horses are going to be in relation to the others.

"We thought we had a great chance and I'm delighted she has won. No disrespect to Lester Piggott, but is Frankie Dettori not just the greatest jockey?

"He gave the horse a fantastic ride by tracking Wesley Ward's horse (Kimari) and he was so relaxed and confident - we could not have been in a better position in the race and you know you've got the right man on board for the last 100 yards too.

"We had some doubts about coming back to five furlongs with Raffle Prize because we weren't sure if she could mix it in a Queen Mary over this trip, but she did it well.

"We haven't looked beyond this and for any owner of a filly, the Queen Mary is the number one two-year-old race because everyone wants a Queen Mary winning broodmare - anything beyond this is a bonus."