Free Eagle held on in a dramatic finish to the Prince of Wales’s Stakes but backers and fans of The Grey Gatsby will surely feel that justice was not done as their horse rocketed home after trouble in running. Kevin Ryan’s grey, who famously beat Australia in Ireland last year, came within inches of another notable success here but the winning post came just too soon.
The architect of The Grey Gatsby’s downfall was Frankie Dettori, riding the eventual third, Western Hymn, who moved up on the grey’s outside at an early stage, holding him in behind Free Eagle. The Grey Gatsby never saw daylight until the point inside the final furlong when Free Eagle rolled toward the far rail.
At that point, The Grey Gatsby and Jamie Spencer surged forward and at least forced a photo finish but it was immediately clear from TV replays that Free Eagle had just got home in front. One stride beyond the post, the positions were reversed.
The outcome is a triumph for the Irish trainer, Dermot Weld, who is also expected to field the favourite for Thursday’s Gold Cup, Forgotten Rules, in spite of concerns about the ground, which is now officially firm in places.
“When you’ve got a good horse it makes the training easy,” Weld said, “but it hasn’t been easy with him. He got a heavy head cold a few weeks ago and I thought today was very much in doubt, but we got him right on the day that mattered.”
Earlier, the American trainer Wesley Ward won the Queen Mary Stakes for a second time, six years after his Jealous Again bolted five lengths clear of her field. She was allowed to start at 13-2 but Ward has since established a reputation for bringing astonishingly fast juveniles across the Atlantic for this week and his Acapulco was sent off as the 5-2 favourite, despite having been beaten on her only racecourse outing.
Ward had enthused about her unstintingly in the buildup, describing her work on turf as the best he had ever seen, and the crowd here saw what he had been seeing when Ryan Moore sent her for home with two furlongs to go. While the winner was impressive, Easton Angel ran a huge race in defeat, having raced on the opposite side of the course and started her run after Acapulco had gone clear.
Acapulco was noted by many as an unusually impressive physical specimen for a two-year-old filly, to the extent that even Ward appeared confused. “If you look at her, she looks like she’s four and not three,” he said on Racing UK.
The two other races on day two of Royal Ascot went for the bookmakers, with both Ivawood, favourite for the Jersey, and Integral, favourite for the Duke Of Cambridge, performing miles below expectations. Dutch Connection won the Jersey for the trainer Charlie Hills, whose father, Barry, had the narrow runner-up in Fadhayyil. Amazing Maria was a 25-1 stunner in the Duke Of Cambridge, beating Rizeena, whose previous Ascot record had been three from three.
