The Invincible Spirit sireline came up trumps again at Royal Ascot overnight in the Group I King’s Stand Stakes (5f) with last year’s Group I Darley July Cup winner Oxsted scoring a length and a half win against a big field of 16.
Ridden by Cieren Fallon and trained by Roger Teal, Oxsted had placed at his two previous runs this year and relished the fast run race on quick ground.
Race favourite Battaash, who won the race last year, finished in fourth place.
“I got a lovely trip, they went a real solid gallop early on and I didn't panic. Normally Oxsted is a horse that can be quite keen but they've gone that hard, I've just given him his head, let him get into a nice rhythm and just picked them up when I've needed to,” said Cieren Fallon.
“He's shown that the July Cup wasn't a fluke, he's a proper Group 1 horse.”
Retained to race by his breeders, Oxsted has the overall record of five wins and four placings from 14 starts and is the best of nine stakes-winners for his sire Mayson, a fast sprinting son of Invincible Spirit that won the July Cup in 2012.
Mayson stands at Cheveley Park at a fee of 4,000 pounds.
Oxtsed is the best of two winners from the handy four time winning Choisir mare Charlotte Rosina, whose immediate family is barren of Black Type.
Interestingly for Australian breeders, Choisir mares have a good record with sons of Invincible Spirit, that nick producing 17 winners from 25 runners including four stakes-winners with Oxsted the first Group I winner and Australian bred Eckstein, a Group III winner that was second in the Group I VRC Myer Classic.
That’s certainly food for thought this season given the plentiful supply of Choisir mares and the choice of no fewer than six sons of Invincible Spirit at stud here this spring.
