RACING ROYAL ASCOT REPORT: FRIDAY MIGHT not have been "veterans day" but there was a wonderfully familiar vibe to yesterday's Royal Ascot action especially as Barry Hills produced Ghanaati to blow some Classic opposition away in the Coronation Stakes.
It is 38 years since Hills recorded his first victory at the Royal meeting and the trainer has been plagued with ill-health recently, so much so that he was at his home yesterday after a month in hospital with blood poisoning while Ghanaati was adding to her 1,000 Guineas success last month.
He missed a completely dominant performance that saw the Sheikh Hamdan-owned filly easily beat Reggane with the winners of the Irish and French Guineas, Elusive Wave and Again, well strung out behind her.
Hills’s son Richard did the honours on board and left no one in doubt about his regard for the filly whose name in Arabic means My Love. “Without doubt she is the best filly I’ve ridden,” he said. “It’s been quite emotional with my dad and everything. I could almost hear him talking me through the race. I knew she was good when he told me. Now I know why he wouldn’t let me let the handbrake off at home!”
Hills had earlier teamed up with another Sheikh Hamdan-owned filly, Habaayib, to get the better of Aidan O’Brien’s favourite Lillie Langtry in the Albany Stakes.
“She has a lot of speed but Richard was adamant we run here rather than the Queen Mary and he was proved right,” said the winner’s trainer Ed Dunlop.
However, it was Dunlop’s legendary Newmarket trainer Henry Cecil who notched a remarkable 71st Royal Ascot victory in the Group Two King Edward VII Stakes as Father Time proved too good for Your Old Pal with Black Bear Island only third.
Cecil is another who has not enjoyed the best of health in recent years and Father Time proved a very popular winner. “I’ve had a few lean years but they have run well this week. I thought this race was my best chance of a winner,” Cecil said of a colt who is now 6 to 1 for the St Leger.
“He is a full-brother to Passage Of Time who didn’t really get a mile and a half but this one seems to want a trip and gets it well,” he added. “We will have to think about the Leger now.”
O’Brien reported on Black Bear Island: “We might give him a break after two quick runs. The Eclipse will come too soon.”
The Ballydoyle trainer was also out of luck in the Queen’s Vase as the well-backed Yankee Doodle couldn’t cope with Holberg. The winner was landing the Group Three for the fifth time in the last nine years for his trainer Mark Johnston under Co Wicklow-born rider Joe Fanning.
Another famous Newmarket trainer won out in the Wolferton Handicap when Michael Stoute saddled Perfect Stride to get the better of a rousing finish with Moonquake in the Wolferton Handicap.
However, it was appropriate that the concluding Buckingham Palace Stakes fell to the Hills team too as this time Michael Hills did the steering on his father’s Giganticus to complete a memorable family day for one of Britain’s most famous racing dynasties.
