Dettori and the Queen's day to forget
Well that was a dramatic day but perhaps more because of the vanquished than the victors. Everyone started the day hoping the Queen would have a winner. In the end the heavily backed odds-on shot Reach For The Moon was beaten fair and square in the Hampton Court Stakes but Saga was narrowly beaten after finishing fast in the Britannia Stakes and then Tactical was on the wrong side in the last.
The common denominator on the first two of those was Frankie Dettori and today was the day the jockey’s love affair with Ascot turned very sour. What can you say about his ride on Stradivarius in the Gold Cup other than he made the same mistake as last year in letting his mount get too far back and then running into traffic problems. Read between the lines of his TV interview and trainer John Gosden was clearly unhappy with that effort.
The Queen has three more chances of success tomorrow with a trio of runners but given she couldn’t make it today it’s highly unlikely she will get to Ascot this week. There must be a chance we will not see her at the races again and racing is going to lose its greatest friend. Charles and Camilla will only do the first two days in future more than likely and the Cambridges obviously don’t have the slightest interest.
Meanwhile, see you tomorrow when the highlight is the Coronation Stakes and the return of Inspiral. Dettori is on board and has a chance at some kind of redemption but it won’t be a gimme by any means.
Buckingham Palace Stakes (6.10pm) result
1 Inver Park (B A Curtis) 12-1
2 Ropey Guest (T P Queally) 40-1
3 Rhoscolyn (D Tudhope) 33-1
4 Chiefofchiefs (J P Spencer) 16-1
29 ran
Also: 7-2 Fav Montassib
