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And Day 2 Wednesday with more excitements
There's no Royal Procession this year because of Covid so the first to go down the straight from the Queen Anne's gate were the 11 runners in the Queen Anne Stakes over the straight mile.
And there was no great surprise when Palace Pier, currently rated one of the best horses in the world, gave Frankie Dettori another excuse to do a flying dismount after he won by 1 ½ lengths from Lope y Fernandez. Sir Busker was a 22/1 paying third and Lord Glitters provided us with one of our fourth placed tips. Order of Australia was disappointing – probably didn't like the going as he hung badly towards the end.
There's always the possibility of an upset and there was one in the Coventry when Berkshire Shadow collected on 11/1 for Andrew Balding and Oisin Murphy. Second home was Eldrickjones on 66/1 and third Vintage Clarets on 25/1 which if you had the trifecta you could probably afford a few. With 2yos they are basically unexposed and as they are still growing previous form is not always a good guide.
Poor Battash got beaten in the King's Stand as Roger Teal's Oxted provided excuses for more jubilation from the trainer. Ciaran Fallon was on board and while they were on 4/1 second home Arecibo was on 28/1 and third Extravagant Kid 18/1. Battash had to settle for fourth.
The St James's Palace Stakes was a great result for Jim Bolger's homebred Poetic Flare who proved to be one tough horse having done the round of the Guineas races (where he won the first but not the other two although performed well) and came into his 4th G1 in 45 days.
Bolger is full of praise for his horse and said he was going so well they had to come to Ascot.
Kevin Manning as usual in the irons so that was 2 wins to the 50yo jockeys in the first 4 races. Vintage stuff. Lucky Vega was 4 ½ lengths back in second and Battleground third, our roughie Maximal not far away in fourth.
And for Wednesday we have much to looks forward to. The Queen Mary is G2 for the 2yo fillies and as per the caveats above about 2yos we have the two American runners on top in the market – Twilight Gleaming on 9/4 with trainer Wesley Ward saying that she is the fastest of his 1000m horses and Artos on 11/2 for George Arnold II with Dettori booked for the ride. Irish raiders Quick on 15/2 for Gavin Cromwell and Gary Carrol is on 15/2 and Yet 10/1 for Aidan-Moore.
The Queen's Vase is for the 3yo over a character-testing 2800m. Wordsworth has managed 2600m and is on 5/2 for Aidan-Moore. Stowell is 11/2 for the Gosdens with Dettori to ride and Kemari for the Godolphin team of Appleby- Buick. He's interesting in that he's been gelded and therefore cannot run in the classics. 15/2. Kyprios is another son of Galileo like his stablemate Wordsworth and is on 10/1 with Seamie Heffernan riding. Joseph O'Brien saddles Benaud, a son of Australia which sounds about right, who is on 14/1 with Colin Keane riding.
The Duke of Cambridge is over the straight 1600m for the f&m and here we see the exciting Lady Bowthorpe, who was second in the Lockinge to Palacce Pier so this in theory will be easier so she is 2/1 and would not surprise to see her starts at odds-on. Queen Power is on 5/1, and we are venturing a bit wider with Champers Elysees 11/1 and Valentina Messalina also on that quote.
The Prince of Wales's Staeks G1 over 2000m has seven runners and our beloved Love should do the right things here – she's on 6/4. Lord North is a worthy challenger on 2/1 with Armory third in the market on 3/1.
