Ascot: Canford Cliffs wears down Goldikova in Queen Anne

Canford Cliffs won his fifth consecutive Group 1 race in the Queen Anne, finishing a length in front of three-time Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Goldikova, beaten for the first time since August.

Ridden by Richard Hughes for trainer Richard Hannon, Canford Cliffs was fifth early, stalking pacesetter Flash Dance. Goldikova was third for the first half of the one-mile race run on a straightaway.

Sent off as the 11-8 second choice, Canford Cliffs moved closer to the front with two furlongs remaining and was alongside Goldikova with a furlong remaining. Canford Cliffs took the lead with a sixteenth of a mile remaining and slowly pulled clear to edge Goldikova, the 5-4 favorite ridden by Olivier Peslier. Cityscape finished third.

“I’ve said since the first day that I’ve rode him that he was an amazing horse,” Hughes said. “The best I’ve ever ridden.”

A 4-year-old Irish-bred colt by Tagula, Canford Cliffs has won 7 of 10 starts. His current five-race winning streak includes three races in 2010 – the Irish 1000 Guineas, St. James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot, and the Sussex Stakes – and one race earlier this year, the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury on May 14.

Goldikova won the BC Mile at Churchill Downs last November and won her 2011 debut in the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan at Longchamp in France on May 22.

In the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes, Prohibit, making his ninth start of the year, rallied from well off the pace in a field of 19 to outfinish the Australian invader Star Witness and win the five-furlong race on a straightaway by a half-length. Sweet Sanette, a Hong Kong invader who led with two furlongs remaining, held third.

The two American runners were unplaced, with Bridgetown, trained by Todd Pletcher, and Holiday for Kitten, trained by Wesley Ward, finishing 12th and 13th.

The Ward trainee Italo finished last of 23 in the Group 2 Coventry Stakes for 2-year-olds over six furlongs, a race won by Power, an Oasis Dream colt trained by Aidan O’Brien.

* In the 24-runner Windsor Castle Stakes for 2-year-olds, the Ward-trained Gentlemen’s Code led early in the five-furlong dash but faded in the final furlong under jockey Mike Smith to finish 2 3/4 lengths behind favored Frederick Engels.