Day Two at the Royal Ascot meeting looked tricky for punters and so it proved with five of the seven races going to horses at double figure odds and only one winning favourite.
However, the sole winning favourite was an extremely popular one with the large Ascot crowd as Frankie Dettori booted home his first winner of the meeting on John and Thady Gosden’s Gregory in what will be his swansong at the historic event.
Gregory was shortened by the bookmakers for the St Leger, Paddy Power quickly dropping him to 5/2 from 8/1. Dettori mentioned the Leger post-race while emphasising the horse had been a late developer. “He was like a sleeping giant in the yard, and all of a sudden he’s a Royal Ascot winner. Potentially he could be a nice St Leger horse for the end of the season, but John and Thady will work something out.”
The day’s feature race, The Prince of Wales’s Stakes, provided a surprise outcome with the Gosden’s winning again courtesy of the slightly wayward five year old Frankel horse Mostahdaf. Successful on multiple occasions at Group 3 level he’d previously been found wanting in the highest grade. In what was regarded a strong field, featuring several Group 1 winners, he was a revelation, storming clear under Jim Crowley in the straight to win by an easy 4 lengths from the Aidan O’Brien trained Luxembourg.
Gosden was perhaps not as surprised as the rest of us but he was still taken aback by the manner of the win. “I was expecting him to pick up well in the straight but not make them look like they were standing still,” he said after the race.
With the King and Queen in attendance for the second day in a row and with the sun shining on the Berkshire track the crowds left happy, despite the difficulties they faced in pinpointing the day’s winners.
