For the third day running, Aidan O’Brien was posing for the photographers in the winner’s enclosure after the big race here on Friday. In a break with the normal routine, however, he had been summoned from the runner-up’s spot to shake the hand of the winning trainer: his 25-year-old son, Donnacha, whose filly Porta Fortuna had just run straight past O’Brien Snr’s Opera Singer in the closing stages of the Group One Coronation Stakes.
Porta Fortuna was Donnacha O’Brien’s first Group One at Royal Ascot and only his second success at the meeting after the same filly’s victory in the Albany Stakes on this card last year, but it was far from being a surprise. She set off as the 7-2 third-favourite, having finished just a head behind the winner in the 1,000 Guineas last month.
