Royal Ascot: Golden Pal will need his best in King's Stand Stakes

Wesley Ward has taken to steadily using an arresting turn of phrase to describe his crack sprinter Golden Pal: “The best horse I’ve ever trained.”

The question regarding Golden Pal is whether he needs a turn to live up to that description.

In North American turf sprints, run around a bend, 4-year-old Golden Pal has proved untouchable. Incredible gate speed propels him to early leads, and he is the rare horse capable of laying down extremely fast fractions and still finishing full of energy. It’s that capability that has propelled him to six wins, including two Breeders’ Cup races, from six American turf starts.

While Ward has done far better than any American trainer sending horses to races in Europe, Golden Pal has run worse in his two straight-course sprints overseas than in any of his turning races back home. Perhaps it is the lack of a turn; maybe Golden Pal doesn’t feel comfortable going over undulations rather than a flat American track. Still, Ward believes Golden Pal can show his best in a straight-course dash, and the colt gets the chance to prove it Tuesday in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes, part of an the opening-day card of Royal Ascot 2022.

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The King’s Stand is the third race on a program with two other Group 1 contests, the Queen Anne over a straight mile, where Baaeed will be justifiably and heavily favored, and the St. James’s Palace, a one-turn mile for 3-year-olds with English 2000 Guineas winner Coroebus an odds-on chalk. The American horse Late September tries the Coventry Stakes for 2-year-olds.

First post for the card, which starts with the Queen Anne, is 9:30 a.m. Eastern. Live coverage and wagering are available at DRFBets.com.

Golden Pal raced in the 2020 Norfolk Stakes, his prior Royal Ascot experience, and ran well in defeat. Ward wonders if Golden Pal was put to a finishing drive slightly too early, leaving him vulnerable to a late surge from The Lir Jet, who won by a neck as Golden Pal finished three lengths clear of the third-place horse. Last summer’s Nunthorpe Stakes, over a straight five furlongs at York, turned out worse. Golden Pal made a clear early lead but was gassed with a quarter-mile still to run, fading to seventh. Ward could find nothing amiss with his star following the race and proffers two plausible excuses: A five-week turnaround from a Saratoga stakes race might have been asking too much of a horse who runs as fast and hard as Golden Pal, and Ward wonders if Frankie Dettori took too strong a hold on his mount in the early going.

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It’s Ascot novice Irad Ortiz Jr. riding on Tuesday, and Golden Pal, a great gate horse, surely will be leading through the early and middle stages. Will he hold off Australian star Nature Strip? Many think not, with Nature Strip just behind Golden Pal in early fixed-odds betting. Nature Strip, trained by Chris Waller, is an eight-time Group 1 winner with 20 victories from 37 career starts. His connections say that despite his age he’s as good as ever, and to beat him, Golden Pal will have to be, too.