Animal Kingdom won the 2011 Kentucky Derby in his first dirt start, and he traveled halfway around the globe to capture the $10 million Dubai World Cup in March, but he could not conquer his latest new world, England, clunking home 11th of 13 on Tuesday at Royal Ascot as Declaration of War won the Group 1, $311,000 Queen Anne Stakes.
Al Kazeem was a 9-4 choice when he upset the heavily favored Camelot in the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup in Ireland on May 26. When they meet for a rematch in Wednesday’s Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, it is Al Kazeem who will be the strong favorite.
Treve made the third start of her career in Sunday’s $1.32 million French Oaks at Chantilly Racecourse but ran like a filly with considerable experience, winning the Group 1 race by four lengths to remain unbeaten.
The Queen Anne, a Group 1 going a mile, is run down a straight, undulating Royal Ascot course far different from anything Animal Kingdom has encountered in a race.
Flotilla, who won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita last November, will try to win her third consecutive major stakes against a talented field of 3-year-old fillies in Sunday’s $1,320,000 French Oaks at Chantilly Racecourse in France.
At the Royal Ascot meeting in England, there is no gradual crescendo to a fantastic finale. Day 1 of five-day stand is the best day of the meeting, and the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes, the first race on the first day, often is the meeting’s best race.
Animal Kingdom on Wednesday morning had his final breeze for the Queen Anne Stakes on Tuesday at Royal Ascot when he worked five furlongs on an uphill synthetic-surface gallop in Lambourn, England.
Legendary English trainer Henry Cecil, who trained the brilliant unbeaten turf miler Frankel and four winners of the English Derby, died early Tuesday after a battle with cancer. He was 70.
Linton, a 7-year-old gray gelding, rallied on the rail through the final quarter-mile to win Saturday’s $1,292,000 Stradbroke Handicap at Eagle Farm Racecourse in Australia.
A week after winning his first stakes of 2013 in the Group 2 Queensland Guineas, Sizzling faces older horses in Saturday’s $1,292,000 Stradbroke Handicap at Eagle Farm Racecourse in Australia.
