It was a roller coaster ride at Royal Ascot on Day 1with an Aussie owned and ridden victory, a glorious grey, a high profile mare that refused to load and a G1 winner with no pedigree!
Aussies celebrated victory in the Group I Queen Anne Stakes with Docklands, but there were two more G1 races contested at Royal Ascot on Day 1 with fabulous grey Kingman colt Field of Gold dazzling in the Group I St James’s Palace Stakes (1m) and the Group I King Charles Stakes (5f) producing a long shot trifecta with no joy for the Aussies.
The Group I St James’s Palace Stakes was billed as the ultimate showdown for three year-old colts with the winners of the English 2000 Guineas (Ruling Court (Justify)), Irish 2000 Guineas (Field of Gold (Kingman)) and French 2000 Guineas (Henri Matisse (Wootton Bassett) engaged.
They duly filled the trifecta with the John and Thady Gosden trained Field of Gold proving dominant with a three and a half length win for Colin Keane over Henri Matisse with Ruling Court in third place.
Racing in the colours of Juddmonte Farms, Field of Gold emulated the success of his sire Kingman, who was bred and raced by Juddmonte and won this race in 2014.
Field of Gold has had a busy start to the year and this was his fourth run since he returned at three to win on April 16.
“That was a great performance. Field of Gold had always impressed as a two-year-old, but he was a big boy and slightly outgrew himself. It was never the plan to go to Ireland, it became the plan, so he's had a trial, two Guineas and this,” said John Gosden.
“It's a lot of racing and we're not even beginning to be half-way through the season. Maybe freshen and go to the Sussex, something like that, we'll see.”
Field of Gold was purchased for 530,000 euros from the Roundhill Stud draft at the 2022 Goffs November Foal Sale where he was the second highest priced horse at the sale.
He is a half-brother to stakes-winner Zanbaq being the best of three winners from well bred Shamardal mare Princess de Lune, a winning sibling to Group I winner Zabeel Prince, Group II winners Puissance de Lune (who raced and stands at stud in Australia) and Queen Power, as well as the dam of Group I winner Rizeena.
The Group I King Charles Stakes (5f) saw last year’s Aussie bred and trained runner Asfoora back to defend her title, but she came up short finishing equal fifth with victory going to American Affair, who became the first stakes-winner in his family going back five generations!!
In the lead up to this race there was plenty of media attention for a couple of high profile mares engaged with Coolmore’s Believing, purchased for 3million guineas at last year’s Tattersalls December Mares Sale and the in-form Zoustar mare Mgheera, bought for €250,000 at the Arqana December Breeding Stock Sale and now raced by Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Yarraman Park’s Arthur Mitchell.
Mgheera refused to load into the barriers so took no part to the great disappointment of connections and Believing, who is in foal to Frankel, could finish only 11th as favourite.
Interesting run in the race was Zoustar stallion Starlust, who finished a close fourth and will stand in the Hunter Vallery this spring at Riverstone Lodge.
Trained by Jim Goldie and ridden by Paul Mulrennan, American Affair won by a neck earning the first Black Type of any sort in his career to date.
A five year-old gelding by Zoffany stallion Washington DC, American Affair has eight wins and seven placings from 22 starts.
“I've trained the family for three generations so it's very sweet. American Affair’s grandfather had his day here so we're pretty lucky that we can breed horses like that. He's just getting faster, we went seven furlongs at Wetherby in his maiden, we've learnt to run him over the right trip, we took him back to five and he's just getting better and better,” said Jim Goldie.
“I was quite confident he could do it today, he had the talent, we got it wrong at Haydock. I knew he was probably one of the fastest horses in the race but it's how you control that. We've come down a day early and got him relaxed and it all fell into place.”
American Affair is the second winner from Classy Anne, who won six minor races all at 5f and the family is obscure to say the least.
Washington DC stands at Bearstone Stud at a fee of £3,500.
