Royal Ascot: Ward, Stoute seeking fifth wins in top Wednesday stakes

If Love Reigns can run down a straight course on the second day of Royal Ascot anything like she ran around a turn on the closing day at Keeneland, she’ll stand a strong chance of giving trainer Wesley Ward his fifth win in the Group 2, $140,000 Queen Mary on Wednesday.

Plenty of overseas bettors think she will. Love Reigns as of Monday was a little less than 3-1 with British bookmakers to land the Queen Mary. She’ll have Irad Ortiz Jr. on her back and 20 2-year-old fillies opposing her in the five-furlong Queen Mary, which kicks off the Wednesday action at Royal Ascot.

Michael Stoute has trained as many winners of the Wednesday feature, the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes for older horses over 1 1/4 miles, as Ward has Queen Mary winners, though Ward’s first Queen Mary came in 2009 (with Jealous Again, the first year he won an Ascot race) and Stoute won the Prince of Wales’s as far back as 1981.

Stoute also has taken two of the last four, with Poet’s Word in 2018 and Crystal Ocean in 2019, and Bay Bridge, despite the fact he’s making his Group 1 debut, is favored in Wednesday’s contest.

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Stoute already has won the Epsom Derby this year with super-talented Desert Crown, and as he did with Desert Crown, who’d never tried Group 1 competition before the Derby, Stoute incrementally has brought Bay Bridge up to his first start at the highest level.

Bay Bridge, by New Bay, lost his two starts as a 2-year-old of 2019 but is unbeaten in five races since. None of his four 3-year-old starts came above the listed-stakes level, but Stoute signaled he was getting more serious by running Bay Bridge in the Group 3 Brigadier Gerard Stakes on May 26 at Sandown Park. There, Bay Bridge faced multiple Group 1 stakes winner Addeybb and Mostahdaf, a John and Thady Gosden-trained colt on a three-race winning streak and 3 for 3 at Sandown.

It proved easy work for Bay Bridge. Ryan Moore, who rides again Wednesday, kept Bay Bridge snugged behind pacesetting Addeybb and pace-tracking Mostahdaf until the final furlong, when Moore pulled out and Bay Bridge swamped the top two, pulling away to a five-length win over this distance.

His competition includes the Japanese shipper Shahryar, who brings outstanding credentials into a race that might ultimately prove too short for him. Shahryar won at 1 1/8 miles earlier in his career but his best performances – a win in the Japan Derby, a third in the Japan Cup, and a win over Breeders’ Cup Turf hero Yibir in the Sheema Classic – all have come in 1 1/2-mile races.

Lord North won the 2020 Prince of Wales’s, missed the race last season, and now probably has lost a step from his peak form two years ago. He comes off a fourth-place finish, no apparent excuse, in the Tattersalls Gold Cup, where Prince of Wales’s entrant State of Rest, two years younger than Lord North and with more latitude to improve, was third.

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The Prince of Wales’s is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Win and You’re In race linked to the BC Turf.

As for Love Reigns in the Queen Mary, she hardly could have impressed more April 29 at Keeneland, where she went to the front, just cruised along on a fast pace, and won a 5 1/2-furlong maiden turf race by nearly 10 lengths. Granted, Rivka, the runner up and Love Reigns’s stablemate, turned in bland performance in New York last week, but Love Reigns absolutely buried Rivka in Kentucky, showing great speed but racing with a relaxed enough approach.

Love Reigns breaks from post 5, and it will be a surprise if Love Reigns, a U S Navy Flag filly who campaigns for Stonestreet Stable, doesn’t head straight to the lead.

The card’s other stakes are the Group 2 Queen’s Vase, a staying race, and the Group 2 Duke of Cambridge for fillies and mares going one mile, with Mother Earth the early favorite.

First post for the card is 9:30 a.m. Eastern. Catch all the action at DRFBets.com.