The latest from the track
The latest from the track

Royal Ascot reaction: David Ord on the Wednesday action


David Ord was at Royal Ascot to see Frankie Dettori get off the mark for the week - and Mostahdaf run out a brilliant winner of the feature race.

Now I know this is a stretch – but if Ascot had followed York’s example and welcomed the winner of their races back with a blast of an appropriate song, then Jamie Lawson’s “I Wasn’t Expecting That” would have boomed out from the bandstand as Mostahdaf returned following a scintillating Prince Of Wales’s Stakes triumph.

But some clearly did. He was 25/1 last night, 20/1 this morning and returned 10s.

And John Gosden wasn’t surprised either. Far from it. Quick ground, fresh – that’s the key.

And let’s be fair – despite auditioning for his future career as a stallion for a good chunk of the preliminaries – Mostahdaf chose the right day to produce a quite dazzling performance.

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He could be called the winner from the moment they turned in, swinging away under Jim Crowley as Luxembourg tried to fend off Adayar. Neither had a prayer of withstanding the winner’s change of gear which eventually catapulted him a widening four lengths clear.

We’d built up this as being potentially the race of the week – so for any horse to emerge from it with such an authoritative victory seems significant.

It will be interesting to see the number the Timeform handicappers go for when they pass judgement on the display. For Gosden Senior there was no time to wait and dissect – just to enjoy.

“He won the Neom Cup in Saudi Arabia in that style and when the ground dries up, he’s a brilliant horse,” he enthused.

“The amount he quickened past the others did surprise me today, but he has it in him. We were going to go to the Brigadier Gerard but he hadn’t quite recovered from his Middle Eastern campaign and if you check the formbook he took on a certain Equinox in the Sheema Classic.

“A mile-and-a-half is beyond him, he’s a mile-and-a-quarter horse, but he was the only one to put it up to the winner that day, he gave it his best go and what a horse the Japanese horse is.”

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The challenge now is to build on Wednesday – one that Mostahdaf will be set at York in August.

“I always find the Coral-Eclipse comes too quick after Ascot. It’s only two weeks. The Juddmonte Intenrational is the race for him. Ten furlongs and go there nice and fresh. We can’t have too many nights on the town, we don’t bounce out of them like we used to,” the trainer smiled.

This was another significant moment from the remodelled and rejuvenated Shadwell team too.

A lot has changed since Baaeed won the Queen Anne Stakes for them at last year’s meeting.

Their figurehead Sheikha Hissa is recently married and was joined by husband Sheikh Maktoum bin Majid Al Maktoum to accept the trophy from the new Queen.

Baaeed has joined the stallion roster at the Nunnery Stud, where Mostahdaf mighthave earned a place today and judging by his pre-race antics it’s a role he’d relish.

There are new trainers on the roster, the two-year-olds are up and winning, Tasleet’s Coventry Stakes hero of 2022 Bradsell added a King’s Stand to his stallion’s honours board this week too.

The game is all about momentum – and they have it.

Speaking of Sheikha Hissa and the Shadwell changes Gosden said: “She has done amazingly. She rationalised the whole programme after her father died, bringing it all together. She’s here with her husband today – she’s recently married – and it’s a great achievement to put this together. Baaeed last year and this horse now, possibly worthy of going to stud as a stallion – that’s what it’s all about.”

A reminder of where they’ve built from came in the preceding Duke Of Cambridge Stakes.

It was won by Rogue Milennium, sold as an unraced two-year-old out of Marcus Tregoning’s yard as part of the mass dispersal of mares and horses in training that followed the death of founder Hamdan Al Maktoum.

She gave new trainer Tom Clover the greatest day of his fledgling career when cutting down Random Harvest in the dying strides of the Group Two contest.

And dear reader we did have the Frankie Dettori winner to celebrate – another Gosden runner – Gregory who landed some lumpy bets when making all to win the Queen’s Vase. There was applause from and for the crowd, a flying dismount, and everyone, in the warm sunshine, headed home happy.

But you’d imagine none happier than team Shadwell. Another very good day at the office.


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