Royal Ascot opens with matchup of international stars

A fascinating and most unusual showdown launches the five-day Royal Ascot meeting Tuesday.

A year ago, Able Friend had just run in his first group stakes, with the horse virtually unknown outside Hong Kong. Solow, in France, also stepped into group stakes competition for the first time, thudding home sixth in a race just shy of two miles.

So much has changed since then. Able Friend lost his first start of the Hong Kong season last October, but has since reeled off six straight wins, sweeping the three Group 1 one-mile races there while emerging as an international star.

Solow was gelded and dropped back in trip from marathons to middle distances, and he also has thrived, winning all six starts since those changes and rising steadily in class to capture consecutive Group 1s.

Those are the two principals among eight entrants Tuesday in the first race of the Ascot meet, the Group 1 Queen Anne, a straight-course mile worth about $581,000. Solow has steadily held Queen Anne favoritism, with Able Friend a close second choice. Night of Thunder, who beat stablemate and Queen Anne entrant Toormore last out in the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes, has been well supported as a solid third choice. Toormore is not without hope should the favorites flounder, with Esoterique the most plausible among four apparent outsiders.

The Queen Anne is the first of six races Tuesday, with first post at 9:30 a.m. Eastern. The Ascot course will be rated good Tuesday and probably throughout the week, with no chance of rain until Friday.

Able Friend has become a minor hero during the last year. He is a huge horse, over 17 hands tall and more than 1,300 pounds, and he wins races with powerful moves from off the pace. At peak speed, he has run closing quarter-miles faster than 22 seconds.

But Able Friend has done all his work at Sha Tin Racecourse in Hong Kong, where he has made 16 starts since being imported from Australia. Sha Tin is a flat track, its one-mile races run around one right-handed bend. Both Able Friend and his jockey, Joao Moreira, have muscle memory geared to every inch of that course, but the Queen Anne, with uphill sections making it a more testing mile and its straightaway entirely unfamiliar to Able Friend, marks a dramatic departure from Able Friend’s comfort zone.

Able Friend traveled to England last week, and his trainer, John Moore – another leading light in Hong Kong – reportedly was pleased with the horse’s condition. Still, this race is a postscript coming after the Hong Kong season’s denouement, and Able Friend has been racing steadily for nine months.

Solow might lack Able Friend’s mystique, but he has demonstrated greater versatility and should be a fresher horse. Solow is a massive animal in his own right, and he was gelded in part because he did not appear to be developing into a horse with the quality to become a stallion, and in part because trainer Freddie Head thought he was growing too heavy.

Solow has more speed than Able Friend and has won on ground ranging from heavy to fast. He has won making the pace in a straight-course mile and has won on Polytrack. He has won on undulating courses, and he blew away the field in the Dubai Turf on a flat, turning course. The case against Solow says he’s never beaten a truly good in-form rival. That might be true – even Head acknowledges it – but his six straight wins have come by more than a combined 18 lengths, and during his streak Solow has felt the crop only twice, when jockey Maxime Guyon gave him two reminders powering clear in the $6 million Dubai Turf. Solow had an easy lead-in to the Queen Anne winning the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan May 24, and he rates an edge over Able Friend.

Gleneagles a heavy favorite

Gleneagles will be heavily favored to win the Group 1 St. James’s Palace Stakes on Tuesday, but French 2000 Guineas winner Make Believe could make a race of it.

Trained by Aidan O’Brien for Coolmore connections, Gleneagles finished fourth in his debut last summer but hasn’t been beaten in seven starts since, though he was disqualified from first to third last fall in the Group 1 Jean-Luc Lagardere. Excellent at 2, Gleneagles has been just as good in two starts this year at 3, though his win over 17 foes in the English 2000 Guineas looked sharper than his half-length score last out in the Irish 2000 Guineas. Gleneagles was trapped behind horses much of the trip in that race.

Make Believe has nothing like Gleneagles’s reputation, but he won the French 2000 Guineas by three lengths over New Bay, who came right back to win the French Derby.

The St. James’s Palace has one right-handed bend and is run on the Old Mile course, which slopes uphill for seven of the race’s eight furlongs. Gleneagles went around a left-handed turn going seven furlongs at Leopardstown in Ireland, but has never raced around a right-handed turn. Make Believe’s recent race came around a right-handed bend.

The unexposed Consort, trained by Michael Stoute, also merits an upset look.

Ward invasion begins

U.S. trainer Wesley Ward has entrants in both 2-year-old races Tuesday, with Finnegan set to contest the Group 2 Coventry, and Ruby Notion one of 26 expected runners in the listed Windsor Castle Stakes.

Finnegan, a brother of Bodemeister, dazzled in a Pimlico turf-sprint win Preakness weekend, and Ward, who said the Coventry is a race he would love to win, believes Finnegan has a strong chance. But Finnegan is a distant second choice in the antepost betting behind the Jim Bolger-trained Round Two.

Ward has twice won the Windsor Castle, including last year’s edition with Hootenanny.

◗ Sole Power can become the first three-time winner of the Group 1 King’s Stand over five furlongs if he can outrun 18 rivals Tuesday. Eight-year-old Sole Power scored a convincing win in the Meydan Sprint on March 28 and might have found going softer than he prefers over a distance longer than his best when he finished sixth last out going six furlongs at the Curragh.