Aidan O’Brien got Royal Ascot 2023 off to a near-perfect start with a short-priced double on Tuesday that secured him a notable slice of history.
Opening his account for the week with the 11-8 favourite River Tiber in the Coventry Stakes, it was Paddington’s subsequent St James’s Palace Stakes success that took the Irishman to 83 career victories at the meeting.
It put him one in front of Michael Stoute to make O’Brien the winning-most Royal Ascot trainer of all time.
In the context of centuries of traditions, as well as exerting unprecedented dominance on British racing’s showpiece event from a base in Ireland, it is an astonishing accomplishment that the centre of attention reacted to with characteristic modesty.
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“To break the record is amazing and there are so many people to thank for it, I couldn’t do it without them,” said O’Brien.
“The record is special, especially because it belonged to a special man. We’re in a very privileged position to have these horses and it’s an honour for us to train them,” he added.
Few would argue that point and even less would try to put a limit on the level of rewrite to racing’s record books someone who’s still 53 might ultimately manage.
Having earlier this month equalled Lester Piggott’s haul of nine Epsom Derby wins, even the legendary figure’s Royal Ascot tally of 116 winners might yet come under threat.
O’Brien’s only other runner on Tuesday, Bolshoi Ballet, also ridden by Ryan Moore, came within an ace of a perfect finale but eventually had to settle for runner up spot in the Wolferton behind Royal Champion.
Moore completed a hat-trick in the concluding Copper Horse Handicap as even favourite Vauban led home a Willie Mullins one-two by beating his stable companion Absurde.
It took Moore to 76 Royal Ascot winners in all, one shy of Frankie Dettori. Vauban was cut to 7-1 with some firms for November’s Melbourne Cup after becoming Mullins’s ninth Royal Ascot winner.
The record-breaking theme extended to both Ballydoyle winners as Paddington stretched O’Brien’s unrivalled tally in the St James’s Palace to nine while River Tiber was a 10th in the Coventry.
In the end it wasn’t so much a clash of the Guineas winners as a coronation with O’Brien’s Curragh classic hero Paddington well on top.
At the line he had almost four lengths in hand of the 13-8 favourite Chaldean, winner of the Guineas at Newmarket last month, to prove himself Europe’s top three miler.
For a horse that opened his account for the season in a Naas handicap in March, Paddington’s rise to the top has been almost as unexpected as it has been impressive.
“In the spring we are just trying to get the horses out. Normally ours are too high to run in handicaps, but he wasn’t. The Madrid Handicap is always a good race, you need a good horse for it. He didn’t bolt in on the bridle, but he won like a nice horse and we’ve always really liked him.
“He’s progressed with every run. Last time was his first time on real good ground and we weren’t sure how he would handle it, so he’s obviously very good,” O’Brien said.
“He took me there quite easy and, when he put his foot down, he found plenty,” said Moore. “He’s a very good colt who is improving. He’s a proper horse – very straightforward – and he put them away very easily.”
Through Coolmore’s relentless commercial lens, River Tiber’s Coventry win carried almost as much significance as it cemented his place at the top of next year’s 2,000 Guineas betting.
That he is by their own stallion Wotton Bassett added to the feelgood factor about an unbeaten colt who had to dig deep to ultimately beat off Army Ethos by a neck in a race that gave O’Brien his first Ascot success with Harbour Master in 1997.
“We’ve always thought he was a Guineas horse. When you win a Coventry that’s what you think you have. He’d be very comfortable staying at six furlongs and he could go up to seven whenever because he’s relaxed.
“I think he’d have no problem with a Dewhurst. We probably won’t keep him at six too long, but he’s very comfortable at the moment. Why would you go up when you don’t have to?” O’Brien queried.
“He was never disappointing in any of his work. The stronger the work got, the stronger he became.
“The last piece of work he was doing too well so that was my worry. You could see him through the first part of the race today, he just finds it very easy,” he added.
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With Moore increasingly in his wing-mirrors, day one of his final Royal Ascot was frustrating for Frankie Dettori whose Inspiral had to settle for runner up spot behind the 33-1 outsider Triple Time in the Queen Anne Stakes.
Irishman Kevin Ryan and Neil Callan combined for success on the Frankel colt on his first start at the top level.
Tuesday’s other Group One, the King’s Stand Stakes, fell to last year’s Coventry winner Bradsell who beat the 7-4 favourite Highfield Princess by a length.
The winner carried his rival left in the closing stages but kept the race after a stewards inquiry that saw his rider Hollie Doyle get a four day careless riding ban.
Dettori’s mood wasn’t aided by a nine day careless riding ban for his spin ln Saga in the Wolferton. The suspension rules him out of the Eclipse at Sandown where he had been due to ride Emily Upjohn.
