After five spectacular days of racing, Royal Ascot is over with the finale overnight producing high drama with a runaway G1 winner, the rise of a racing empire and the first stakes horse for St Mark’s Basilica.
Read about Lazzat and his G1 triumph and subsequent runaway antics here.
The Listed Chesham Stakes (7f) for juveniles produced another winner for Wathnan Racing with Ulysses colt Humidity beating Thesecretadversary, a son of first season sire St Mark’s Basilica (Fr), who will be in Australia this spring at Coolmore at a fee of $38,500.
The raging hot favourite in the race was €2million Frankel colt Treanmore, who won brilliantly on debut for Godolphin last month, but he was very disappointing and finished out of the placings.
Bred by Cheveley Park, Humidity won his debut in their colours before being sold to Wathnan Racing and is trained by Andrew Balding with James Doyle in the saddle for this feature win.
“I am so pleased. At the beginning of the week we felt this horse was probably our strongest chance,” said Andrew Balding.
“Humidity is a lovely horse who had to battle hard today, and he's done nothing wrong. I would hope he would stay further, but he's not short of speed either.
“This was always the plan but we will now work back from something nice in the autumn. He is an absolute dude, very relaxed. I think he could be a Guineas horse. He's not short of speed and he's got a lovely long stride, so he's got a bright future.”
Thesecretadversary also pleased connections and is the first stakes horse for his young sire St Mark’s Basilica.
“He ran a great race. It's annoying we didn't get there, but he ran a great race. He's been very straightforward, he's always looked a bit above average from the minute we started doing a bit with him,” said trainer Fozzy Stack.
“Seamie (Heffernan) was delighted with him, he said he has the pace of a good horse, he feels he will mature in time.”
Humidity is a full brother to Group III winner Holloway Boy, who also won the Royal Ascot Chesham Stakes at two in 2022. He is the second winner and second stakes-winner for Sultry, an unraced Pivotal grand-daughter of Group I winning 2YO Gay Gallanta, who was also a Royal Ascot winner of the Group III Queen Mary Stakes.
He is the eighth stakes-winner for Group I winning Galileo son Ulysses, who stands at Cheveley Park at a fee of £8,000.
The Group II Hardwicke Stakes (1m4f) gave Godolphin another big winner at the meeting with 7YO stalwart Rebel’s Romance taking the win over Wootton Bassett stallion Al Riffa with Ghostwriter, who was bought by Amo Racing at the Goffs London Sale for 2million pounds in third place.
Trained by Charlie Appleby and ridden by William Buick, Rebel’s Romance is a Godolphin homebred and the son of Dubawi is a great favourite with the operation boasting the overall record of 18 wins from 26 starts seven of them at G1 level.
“What more can I say? Rebel’s Romance is our stable favourite and always will be. You just don't come across horses like this very often in your career. He's been a huge honour and a credit to the team at home. For me to have a horse like this, coming into the last day with the last roll of the dice he was the horse that we needed,” said Charlie Appleby.
“It was a fantastic ride by William [Buick] - he knows him so well. Once he kicked for home I thought it will be a good one to get past him because as we've seen so many times before he's a battler and if something had come to his girth he would have found again but they didn't get close enough. It's been a great week for Godolphin and I'm just glad that I got one on the board in the end - it's a monkey off my back.”
William Buick’s Tweet said it all.
Rebel’s Romance is a half-brother to Group I winner Measured Time from stakes-placed Street Cry mare Minidress.
The Group III Jersey Stakes (7f) for three year-olds had a dominant winner in Lope de Vega colt Noble Champion, trained by Ed Walker and ridden by Kieran Shoemark.
Sent off at 25-1, Noble Champion scored by more than three lengths and has won two of six starts with this victory his first in a stakes races.
Noble Champion was bought as a yearling at Tattersalls October Book 1 for 500,000 guineas by SackvilleDonald and runs for TBT Racing.
He is a half-brother to Group II winner Pogo and is the second stakes-winner among six winners from placed Diktat mare Cute, who comes from a big Black Type family best known for producing 2020 Champion European 3YO Filly Love.
Noble Champion is the 147th stakes-winner for outstanding sire Lope de Vega, who shuttled to Australia for four seasons.
