Aidan O’Brien will have a handful of runners on the opening day of Royal Ascot and has an 11th leading trainer award in his sights at the renowned fixture, which starts on Tuesday.
It is 25 years since O’Brien opened his Royal Ascot account with Harbour Master in the Coventry Stakes and he has two fancied chances in the same race this time.
The unbeaten Blackbeard and Age Of Kings figure among 17 in the Coventry and are the first representatives of what looks to be a particularly strong Ballydoyle two-year-old team this week.
The Chesham favourite, Alfred Munnings, and Statuette, who tops the Albany betting, are among other O’Brien youngsters who will run later in the week.
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Although the four-year-old Kyprios is among leading fancies for Gold Cup glory on Thursday it appears like the juvenile crop will be of particular Ballydoyle interest as the prestigious action progresses.
The task facing Blackbeard and Age Of Kings was eased with confirmation that Godolphin’s highly rated Noble Style misses the race due to unsatisfactory blood results.
O’Brien first scooped Royal Ascot’s leading trainer award 21 years ago and subsequently won it nine more times, including five in a row between 2015-19. It included a record-equalling seven winners in 2016, which matched the late Henry Cecil’s postwar tally.
Cecil achieved the feat in 1987 when the Royal meeting consisted of four days and 24 races. O’Brien’s seven came over five days and 30 races.
Bookmakers Hills make the Irishman a 9-4 joint-favourite with Godolphin’s Charlie Appleby to emerge on top this time.
The number one jockeys for the respective racing superpowers, Ryan Moore and William Buick, top betting lists for the most successful rider. Moore has been leading rider eight times, but the last time was 2018. Oisín Murphy, currently banned, took the award last year.
Moore set a new postwar record of nine winners for a single Royal Ascot meeting in 2015. The previous best total of eight since 1945 was achieved by Lester Piggott, in 1965 and 1975, and Pat Eddery in 1989 when Royal Ascot took place over four rather than the current five days.
The best ever score by a jockey at Royal Ascot is 12, set by Fred Archer in 1878.
A total of 19 Irish-trained runners were declared for Tuesday action at Sunday’s final declaration and the 2020 Breeders’ Cup hero Order Of Australia is the first of them in the Queen Anne Stakes.
Taking on the world’s top-rated horse, Baaeed, is no easy task for Order Of Australia, who finished out of the money in last year’s Queen Anne and hasn’t run yet this season.
“He was injured at Keeneland on his last run which is why he’s been off so long but the time before he’d been second to Baaeed at Longchamp [Prix du Moulin]‚” O’Brien said on Sunday.
“He had a hairline fracture of a fetlock and had to have a pin put in it but we’ve been very happy with him at home,” O’Brien said on Sunday.
Dermot Weld’s Irish 1,000 Guineas heroine Homeless Songs was a major drifter in betting for Friday’s Coronation Stakes after connections voiced their concern about ground conditions at Ascot.
On Sunday, the going was good to firm and good in places. With little sign of rainfall in the immediate forecast, along with high temperatures, horses that like an ease, including Gold Cup favourite Trueshan, could be forced to miss out.
Weld and owners Moyglare Stud are pinning their hopes on forecast weekend thunderstorms in Ascot arriving sooner than currently anticipated to take any sting out of the ground for Homeless Songs.
“We’ll wait and see what happens. It’s early days and we won’t be making a decision on her participation until later in the week,” Weld reported on Sunday.
Monday’s Irish action takes place in Kilbeggan where trainer Mick Winters can continue his good form with Dark Spark in the featured handicap hurdle.
Winters had a long trip from his Co Cork base to Downpatrick on Saturday, where Inchdaly Copper rewarded substantial market support with a good win over flights.
Dark Spark won an amateur flat contest at Listowel just over a week ago and will try to maintain a perfect course record at Kilbeggan.
A bumper winner at the Co Westmeath track in 2020, he won a maiden hurdle last summer and the well-bred six-year-old looks a type to step up again.
