Millinery, etiquette, champagne, sunshine and the some of the finest
Thoroughbreds the world can offer provide the customary blend as Royal Ascot
2008 gets underway Tuesday. All the stylizing aside — the track is even staging its
own fashion show this year featuring the eccentric displays of Philip Treacy and
Vivienne Westwood — it is the track action which provides the focus for racing’s
purists. As The Duke of Devonshire, Her Majesty the Queen’s Representative and
Chairman of Ascot Racecourse outlines in his introduction to the Royal meeting’s
media guide, this year’s renewal will open with three Group 1 races for the
first time in its near 300-year history.
Some of that rich ancestry is evident
in the name of the very race which has changed the face of this year’s opener as
the King’s Stand S. (Eng-G1) joins the Queen Anne S. (Eng-G1) and the St James’s Palace S.
(Eng-G1) in its
newly elevated status. Named after the initiative by King George IV to bring the
nation’s elite to survey the scene in 1845, the five-furlong dash is the fourth
contest to have been promoted to the highest level since 1999.
This year, prize
money will total £4 million for the first time, none of the 30 races will be
worth less than £60,000, and the leading jockey will sport a yellow Tour de
France-inspired armband as the riders take on a more central role in
proceedings. Perhaps the main attention surrounds the hat-trick bid of YEATS
(Ire) (Sadler’s Wells) in the traditional showpiece, the Gold Cup (Eng-G1) which was
inaugurated in 1807. No horse since the Francois Boutin-trained Sagaro has
achieved the feat and Susan Magnier and Diane Nagle’s seven-year-old will be
bridging a 31-year gap since that great stayer wrapped up the third of his
successes in a golden age of the race.
“There will probably be around 285,000
people this week and we’re really happy with the site and the racecourse,”
Ascot’s PR Chief Nick Smith said. “We’re trying to engage the crowds and the
jockeys more this year and make them more integrated. We have three Group 1s
to start the first day, which is absolutely amazing and the Aussies are back in
town.”
Some of His Highness the Aga Khan’s finest have gone to post at this meeting and
he can count Kalanisi (Ire) and Valixir (Ire) among them as winners of Tuesday’s Queen Anne since the turn of this century. This year’s contender is the
supplemented SAGEBURG (Johannesburg), who sets up an intriguing family
clash with Princess Zahra’s filly sensation DARJINA (Zamindar). While the
pair have already met, with Sageburg coming off 2 1/2 lengths to the good in
Longchamp’s Prix d’Ispahan (Fr-G1) May 18, their trainer Alain de Royer-Dupre is
uncertain as to which will prove best here.
“I think Darjina is better now than
she was in the d’Ispahan, as she had not completely returned to her best and she
is very well,” he commented. “Sageburg needed time to mature, but has progressed
and I think a mile is good for him rather than going longer. It will be very
close between them.”
It is rare that a three-year-old filly can prove capable of shaking up the older
ranks of battle-hardened sprinting colts and geldings, but in FLEETING SPIRIT (Invincible Spirit) there is a real livewire in the division and she
bids to deal some more blows in Tuesday’s King’s Stand. High-class as well as
consistent at two for the Searchers syndicate, she was unbeaten over this trip
and found only one too good in Natagora (Divine Light) when tackling an extra panel in the
Cheveley Park S. (Eng-G1) at Newmarket in October. Her next start was in Haydock’s Temple S.
(Eng-G2) on her sophomore bow May 24, where she smashed the track record.
“I am
very happy with Fleeting Spirit,” trainer Jeremy Noseda commented. “Her build-up
has gone well and she appears to be in tip-top order. It looks as if she will
get her favored fast ground — now we’ll just ask for a good break and a little
bit of luck in running.”
It has become clear that the St James’s Palace is a prime focus for Ballydoyle in recent years, and a 50 per cent strike rate since the millennium
year shows Aidan O’Brien targets this prize with unerring intensity. Like Rock
of Gibraltar (Ire) six years ago, HENRYTHENAVIGATOR (Kingmambo) is on hallowed
ground as a dual Guineas winner attempting a formidable trio here and Susan
Magnier’s star in the ascendant holds all the aces. Ballydoyle’s leading man
looked a cut above as the conqueror of the subsequent Epsom Derby (Eng-G1) hero New
Approach (Galileo [Ire]) first narrowly at Newmarket May 3 and more comprehensively at The
Curragh three weeks later and could be among the very best to have gone to post
for this event.
When asked in a recent interview with the Sunday Times to
compare him to the “Rock” and another previous winner in Giant’s Causeway,
O’Brien said, “This fellow is quicker than they were and I don’t think the move
up to 10 furlongs would bother Henry in the slightest. He can go to sleep in his
races, wake up when he needs to and produce that killer kick, which makes it
difficult for any other horse. If we keep doing a proper job with him, he will
show himself to be an exceptional horse.”