DONN McCLEAN: You were in bad luck if you backed Blue in the Queen’s Hat market on Gold Cup day. If form has anything to do with it, HM’s hat usually matches her coat on Ladies’ Day so. Blue coat, blue hat. You would think. So, while the orange and blue thing looked good, and matched Michael Tabor’s Gold Cup-winning colours, it was no good for Blue backers.
You were also in bad luck if you backed Pink or Cerise, which she wore on Friday. That was like backing Qemah for the French Guineas, then letting her run unbacked in the Coronation Stakes.
If you backed Eagle Top for the Aston Park Stakes at Newbury last month, you are probably thinking twice before deciding to back him again for the Hardwicke Stakes on the final day of Royal Ascot this afternoon.
John Gosden’s colt is talented, that’s for sure. He won the King Edward VII Stakes at this meeting two years ago, he was second in this race last year, and he followed that up by going down by a short head to Postponed in the King George.
But it was disappointing that he couldn’t win the Aston Park. That performance leaves him with questions to answer, while all the time, in the back of your head, is the fact that his family has history.
His dam, Gull Wing, was talented but quirky. A listed race winner, she finished last of 10 in another listed race at Newbury on her penultimate run, then spat the dummy out and refused to race when well fancied for the Park Hill Stakes at Doncaster. After that, connections drew stumps on her racing career.
Gull Wing’s half-sister Sariska also falls into the talented-but-quirky category, that’s for sure. She won the Musidora, won the Oaks, won the Irish Oaks, won the Middleton Stakes, finished second to Fame And Glory in the Coronation Cup. Then she spat the dummy out in the Yorkshire Cup, spat it out again in the Prix Vermeille, and that was that, racing career aborted.
In Eagle Top’s favour, he hasn’t come close to dummy-spitting yet, and he does appear to love Ascot. His record over this course and distance reads 1422, which includes that King Edward VII Stakes win, and that King George defeat by a nostril. Perhaps he needed his seasonal debut more than was appreciated at the time, perhaps there is nothing more to it than that.
This is a good Hardwicke Stakes though. Exosphere was highly progressive last season as a three-year-old, and he was impressive in winning the Group 2 Jockey Club Stakes on his debut this tern, beating Simple Verse by four lengths.
Simple Verse herself is a player. She has since been beaten in the Coronation Cup, but the stop-start gallop that day wouldn’t have suited her, and last year’s St Leger winner won the Group 1 Fillies’ and Mares’ Stakes over this course and distance last October on her only run at Ascot. Although she probably wouldn’t want the ground to go drying out too much.
But the value of the race could lie with Almodovar. David Lanigan’s horse was another progressive three-year-old last season. He won his maiden at Ayr and followed up by winning a handicap at Leicester before getting beaten by Headline News at Pontefract in August.
He probably should have won that day. He hung to his left towards the rail inside the final furlong, and he was just mugged by the winner.
Perhaps something was ailing him that day, causing him to hang, because he was left off the track after that, he had an operation to remove a chip in his knee and he was gelded. One or both operations obviously had an effect, because he put up a fairly breath-taking performance in winning at Kempton on his debut this season.
He travelled supremely well through his race, he eased to the front early in the home straight, and he just eased clear under no more than a squeeze from George Baker. It was only a 0-95 handicap, but he was seriously impressive. The winning time was decent without being exceptional, it was the joint fastest time on the evening, but he was heavily eased, he could have gone an awful lot faster.
The handicapper raised him 14lb for that win and, while that still leaves him with 12lb to find with the top-rated horses today, he has the potential to go and bridge that gap now. He has a highly progressive profile, and it is reasonable to expect significant improvement from his seasonal debut, just his fifth ever run.
By Sea The Stars, his dam Melodramatic won over a mile and stayed 10 furlongs, and she is a three-parts sister to Tante Rose, who won the Group 1 Haydock Sprint Cup. He is bred to be classy.
He has always been highly regarded by Lanigan and owner Bjor Nielsen, and it is interesting that connections are allowing him take his chance in this, the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes. Immediately after his Kempton win, the trainer suggested that yesterday’s Duke of Edinburgh Handicap could be his Royal Ascot target. Obviously Almodovar is impressing sufficiently at home to convince connections that he should be allowed take up his engagement in the Group 2 race.
There is a chance that Almodovar is not up to this class, but there is also a real chance that he is, a better chance than odds of around 12.0 suggest.
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