Royal Ascot 2022: Hardwicke Stakes Stats Guide

Last year’s race

Winner: Wonderful Tonight

Jockey: W Buick

Trainer: D Menuisier

Owner: Mr Christopher Wright

Age: 4 Weight: 8st 12lbs

Starting Price: 5/1

Season Form Figures: Seasonal debut

Previous Best: 1st - Qipco British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes (Group 1), Ascot (October 2020

By Paul Jones

When successful aged five in 2019, Defoe ended the long sequence of winning four-year-olds that has stretched out to 11 runnings. Jupiter Island is the only winner over the age of five since 1905.

Fanny Logan and Wonderful Tonight have taken the last two runnings for fillies. Before then we had to go back to Stanerra in 1983 to locate the previous successful filly/mare who was winning here just three days after also taking the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

Sir Michael Stoute leads the way with 11 Hardwicke successes and eight of those successes have been achieved going back to just 2006. Could Solid Stone be his twelfth? If so he has the age stats to defy being a six-year-old. Other stables to note are that of Mark & Charlie Johnston and Aidan O’Brien with four and three winners respectively. O’Brien’s three winners have been achieved in the last 13 years whereas Johnston’s quartet of successes were some time ago now between 1999-2005.

The Group 1 penalty for the Hardwicke Stakes was dispensed with nine years ago and Defoe and Wonderful Tonight’s connections took advantage of that recently. Defoe won the Coronation Cup on his previous start and Wonderful Tonight was winning on her seasonal debut after two soft-ground Group 1 wins in the autumn so the rain fell in time for her when winning the Hardwicke. Prior to that pair only Assatis in 1990 was a former Group 1 winner in over a quarter of a century. As for Group 2 or Group 3 winners yet to win at the highest level, they have been responsible for 23 of the last 27 winners and 12 of the last 20 winners had won a Group race earlier in the season.

The Coronation Cup has been the best guide signposting nine of the last 23 winners, eight of which finished between third and sixth. Two John Porter winners (won by Max Vega this season) have added the Hardwicke in the last 15 years and Huxley Stakes at Chester (won by Solid Stone) has also been a good guide as four of the last six winners of that Group 3 race to run in the Hardwicke Stakes have notched up three wins and a second.

Trip-wise, only Indian Creek, Await The Dawn and Fanny Logan in the last 25 years were recording their first success over at least 1m4f so don’t look to contenders primarily known as being 1m2f horses as this 1m4f takes some getting. All but three of the last 21 winners had placed at worst in a Group race earlier in the season, the omissions being Sea Moon who won a Listed race, Idaho who ran as if he badly needed his seasonal return in the Coronation Cup and the seasonal debutante, Wonderful Tonight.

Five of the last ten favourites have won so it’s been a good race for the market leader.

At a glance summary:

POSITIVES

Four-year-olds

Won a Group race earlier in the season

Trained by Sir Michael Stoute, Mark & Charlie Johnston or Aidan O’Brien

Ran in the Coronation Cup (notably if finished between third-sixth)

NEGATIVES

Aged 6+

Failed to win a Group 2 or Group 3 race

Failed to have won over at least 1m4f