Another year of Royal Ascot has gone and when you strip away the pomp and ceremony, we have to ask whether or not it was the success it is cracked up to be – and I am not so sure. To the outside world, all is rosy in the World of British racing but try telling that to the millions of fans trapped watching on Channel 4 who were anything but amused. The fact that you are reading this leads me to assume you are pretty interested in horse racing, possibly even more than shoes and hats (how outrageous of you), which if C4 are to be believed, may well put you in the minority. As we all know there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, and someone has managed to persuade the powers that be in their Ivory Towers that the majority of the audience watching Royal Ascot are more interested in the fashion than the horses, to the extent that I have received dozens of tweets commenting that the racing was basically little more than an after thought.
Now there is a remote possibility that they are correct over this five days alone, outrageous as that may seem, but they are certainly missing the bigger picture as that audience will not be back until the same time next season – yet they have managed to alienate their core “punting” audience, which may partly explain their never ending downward spiral of viewing figures.
Moving on to thoughts more positive, and I can use this as an opportunity to be cheeky enough to list my meeting highlights and at least see if they clash with any of yours? We can ignore the obvious and sublime Ryan Moore who has had acres of print surface already written, but how about the ride Pat Smullen gave to Snow Sky to steal the Hardwick Stakes at odds of 12/1 in a seven horse field. Making all the running at a pace that suited him, he kicked clear with perfect timing and saw then all toiling in behind, and forgotten hero as he may be, that was my idea of the ride of the meeting. Picking a horse of the meeting didn’t come quite so easily but I eventually bypassed Acapulco if only because we may not see her again over here, good as she clearly is, and settled on Roger Charlton’s Time Test who really did catch the eye with a near perfect run in the Tercentenary Stakes. A mere handicap winner before this run, he was well supported down to 15/8 favourite (not my money, sadly), and never ever looked in any danger, cruising up to the leaders under hands and heels from jockey Frankie Dettori, and was value for at least twice his official winning margin despite clocking a very fast time. The son of Dubawi is most certainly worth adding to your horses to follow list based on this run and looks as though he can go all the way to the top – though do keep a very careful eye on his running arrangements as it seems quite likely they may send him to France next.
