The French are back in numbers at Royal Ascot after a five-year gap and they will be cracking open the champagne after if Horizon Dore wins Wednesday’s big Group One race, the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.
The France Galop tent in the trainer’s car park, draped in the Tricolore, with lunch laid out on a long table and for a post-race reception, appeared to be a statement of intent.
So where have the French been? Since Watch Me, the last cross-Channel winner at Royal Ascot took the Coronation Stakes in 2019, the meeting has not fitted into the pattern for horses running in the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe, where the French have won on three of the past five occasions.
Secondly there is now a new breed of young, more adventurous French trainer, headed by Christophe Head, who are keen to target the Royal meeting and owners who see the value in targeting the big international races.
The parochial view is that the Prince of Wales’s Stakes is a race between the last year’s Derby winner Auguste Rodin and Inspiral, both Breeders’ Cup winners at Santa Anita a year ago. They will both get their ground but neither is a specialist mile-and-a-quarter horse.
Auguste Rodin must have even equine psychiatrist Aidan O’Brien scratching his head sometimes. The horse appears to either win by a street or, virtually, pull up. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to last year’s Derby winner’s unreliability. Originally it was put down to flying but winning in Santa Anita, a 12 hour flight away, disproved that theory and, though he won last year’s Irish Champion Stakes, he saves his best for a mile and a half.
Inspiral, on the other, is an out and out miler. She always takes a run to get fit so I would not read too much into her run in the Lockinge Stakes last time. She, too, has won over a mile and a quarter in Santa Anita, round two turns. If she was ever going to get a mile and a quarter it was there so there might be a small doubt about her stamina over Ascot’s stiff 10 furlongs and she is here as much because the same connections had Audience to go for Tuesday’s Queen Anne.
Horizon Dore, who is trained in Marseilles by Sunday’s Prix de Diane hero Patrice Cottier, is a specialist at the trip and has been knocking at the door of Group One success. He was narrowly beaten in the Prix d’Ispahan last time but this race, on this ground with two pacemakers guaranteeing pace, looks made for him.
The French also have back up in the form of Blue Rose Cen, last year’s Prix de Diane winner, but eyebrows were raised when she was moved from Head, the new kid on the block in France, to her different trainer Maurizio Guarnieri and she has just over two lengths to make up on Horizon Dore on their last start.
The Royal Hunt Cup is one of Ascot’s great spectacles, 30 runners up the straight mile. Richard Hughes rode over 30 winners at Royal Ascot but is yet to saddle one as a trainer. However, Real Gain has a terrific chance in this and he has been laid out for it. Whether being drawn 29 is a help or a hindrance time will tell but there appears to be pace across the course so the stands rail should be fine.
For the last few years it has usually taken Aidan O’Brien a couple of days to get rolling and while Illinois will be well fancies for the Queen’s Vase, the less experienced but apparently quickly improving Highbury, the stabler second string ridden by Wayne Lordon, could make a big step forward from an impressive win last time.
O’Brien’s son Joseph will be expected to win the Duke of Cambridge with Rogue Millenium but Ocean Jewel beat her last time despite running a bit free last time out and with the freshness out of her can carry a penalty to success on Wednesday.
Make Haste takes Brazilian trainer Diego Dias to verge of Ascot glory
On Wednesday Diego Dias, a former jockey from Brazil turned Curragh trainer, will saddle Make Haste as a likely favourite in the Queen Mary Stakes. He also trains Brosay, an outsider in the Windsor Castle Stakes.