Dubai-based Godolphin among the winners, China Horse Club’s week to forget: Royal Ascot 2016 review

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Following the conclusion of 2016 Royal Ascot, Geoffrey Riddle picks the winners and losers from race week.

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UAE-owned winners at Royal Ascot 2016:

Ardad — Windsor Castle Stakes — Abdullah Saeed Al Naboodah

Ribchester — Jersey Stakes — Godolphin

Usherette — Duke Of Cambridge Stakes — Godolphin

Portage — Royal Hunt Cup — Godolphin

Hawkbill — Tercentenary Stakes — Godolphin

Across The Stars, pictured, — King Edward VII Stakes — Saeed Suhail

WINNERS

America has got its mojo back:

American racing still has a long way to go before it reaches the level of the best racing jurisdictions in the world, but Royal Ascot showed sure signs that their mojo is fast returning. Where once American racing, like a lot of American sport, was inward looking, their horsemen have accepted the challenge from the rest of the world with gusto. Tepin’s victory in the Queen Anne Stakes on Tuesday was nothing short of sensational. Virtually everything was against last season’s Breeders’ Cup Mile heroine and as owner Robert Masterson pointed out afterwards, her win should send a powerful message back home that it can be done. Lady Aurelia’s demolition of the Queen Mary field for Wesley Ward took his record at Royal Ascot to seven wins in total, and all on the back of California Chrome’s Dubai World Cup win. These are heady times.

Adam Kirby:

Adam Kirby has been on the cusp of the big time since he won two Group 1s on Lethal Force in 2013. Kirby has ridden over 200 times for Godolphin in the past five years at a strike-rate of 30 per cent and one day he is sure to secure a decent job in the sport. For now, his emotional win aboard Profitable in the King’s Stand Stakes and My Dream Boat in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes capped a remarkable Group 1 double for him. Kirby rounded off the meeting by urging Commissioned to win the Queen Alexandra Stakes on Saturday. His partner Megan gave birth to their newborn son Charlie on Tuesday. It does not get much better.

Ryan Moore:

It is a testament to Ryan Moore’s durability as Royal Ascot’s leading rider for six out of the last seven years that he did not have the best meeting and still came out on top with six winners. Moore is currently judged by different criteria to the rest of the current crop of riders. Going back to 1975, the only other jockeys to ride six or more at the meeting are Frankie Dettori, Jonny Murtagh, Mick Kinane, Pat Eddery, Steve Cauthen, and Lester Piggott. Several times during the week, he gave horses too much to do, and the door was firmly shut on him when he tried to thread Kings Fete through a gap in the Duke Of Edinburgh Stakes. He still was crowned leading rider, and if everything had gone right he might have threatened last season’s total of nine.

Godolphin:

Last year Godolphin came away from Royal Ascot with only Buratino’s victory in the Coventry Stakes to show for their efforts. Fast forward 12 months and the Dubai-based operation plundered four winners last week. Godolphin have not always bought in the right horses, but Ribchester, pictured, justified John Ferguson’s faith in him with an easy win in the Jersey Stakes for trainer Richard Fahey. Portage won the Royal Hunt Cup for Ireland-based Michael Halford and Charlie Appleby’s Hawkbill to took the Tercentenary Stakes. In addition to Andre Fabre’s Usherette in the Duke Of Cambridge Stakes, it shows Godolphin is getting its act together, despite the lack of a Group 1 win.

Ascot:

The sun was absent for the whole week but the crowds still came. Two seasons ago, 285,831 racegoers flocked to Ascot, which rose to 293,303 12 months ago. Just over 295,000 made it to the royal meeting across the five days last week, which under grey skies is a significant achievement.

LOSERS

A Shin Hikari:

The Japanese horse came with a huge reputation and blew out spectacularly in Wednesday’s Prince Of Wales’s Stakes. A Shin Hikari had showed that he could run in different conditions when he was an astonishing winner of the Prix d’Ispahan in Chantilly last month, and must have recoiled from that huge effort.

British horsemen:

Japanese horsemen may continue to endure a frustrating time in Europe — they are still yearning to win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe — but British horsemen were swamped throughout the five days. A record 14 horses from abroard plundered Ascot’s limited prize-money in search of the meeting’s prestige. There were 10 winners from Ireland, including seven from Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle operation, pictured, two from America and two from France.

Saeed bin Suroor:

The indefatigable Godolphin trainer appears to be suffering the greatest at the hands of Godolphin’s increasingly expansionist policy. Since his first Royal Ascot winner in 1995, Bin Suroor saddled winners at the meeting every year until 2006, when he drew his first blank. He then drew another blank in 2011, and another in 2013 and has not had a winner now since Elite Army won the 2014 King George V Handicap.

Silvestre De Sousa:

The former retained rider to Godolphin and Bin Suroor is the reigning champion jockey in Britain, but the Brazilian barely caused a ripple at the royal meeting. De Sousa missed the opening day of the meeting to take 10 rides in the north of England. He partnered 11 horses in all at Royal Ascot and had only Harrison’s distant third in the King George V Stakes to show for it. It is baffling why he does not get more opportunities.

China Horse Club:

The China Horse Club paid £1.3m (Dh6.86m) for Irish 1000 Guineas winner Jet Setting at the Goffs London Sale on the eve of Royal Ascot last week from the previous owners, who paid just £12,000 for the filly. Jet Setting was sent off favourite for the Coronation Stakes, but finished a laboured sixth to Al Shaqab’s Qemah, pictured. Prior to the race, prominent members of the lifestyle syndicate were keen to push the message of the exceptional experiences that China Horse Club offer to their members in national media and on television stations. Jet Setting will always be a Classic winner, but she is hardly the most beautifully-bred filly to have won the Irish Guineas and it is the filly’s previous owners who are the real winners.