Stradivarius brilliant winning his third straight Gold Cup at Royal Ascot

It’s hard to imagine what Stradivarius can do for an encore after winning his third straight Gold Cup at Royal Ascot in dazzling fashion.

The 2 1/2-mile Gold Cup prizes the stamina of a Thoroughbred, and Stradivarius has stamina for any flat-racing distance, but he won Wednesday showing a turn of foot a top middle-distance runner would appreciate.

Jockey Frankie Dettori waited and waited to ask Stradivarius to run, waited until Stradivarius, moving up on his own, had pushed forward from mid-pack to reach the flank of Nayef Road, who had taken the lead. Dettori asked and Stradivarius gave, taking off before the furlong marker and leaving Nayef Road flailing in his wake. He won the Gold Cup by 10 lengths and marked himself as one of the best staying horses in recent history.

"He has beaten some good horses in his time,” said winning trainer John Gosden. “People have tried to criticize the opposition, but he has put them away with that turn of foot and he has even done it on this ground."

Persistent rain turned Ascot soft for Thursday’s card. The rail was chewed up and Dettori kept his mount out in the center of the track as the real running commenced. The burbling narrative suggested Stradivarius could be vulnerable on a rain-softened course, but instead he stormed home with even more than his typical vigor.

Gosden had used a race in late May to get Stradivarius to his first two Gold Cup wins, but the coronavirus-altered schedule required a different approach this year, and Stradivarius on Thursday started just 13 days after running hard to finish third in the 1 1/2-mile Coronation Cup at Newmarket. Gosden said he feared a bounce in the Gold Cup, but the Coronation, as his master trainer hoped, served only to tighten the screws.
The field was spread all over the track at the finish, with Nayef Road home eight lengths clear of third-place Cross Counter. Second-choice Technician tried to shadow Stradivarius’s every move but was left far behind the final quarter-mile and checked in seventh.

Stradivarius, bred and owned by Bjorn Nielsen, is a 6-year-old horse by Sea the Stars out of Private Life, by Bering. Gosden said the Goodwood Cup, which Stradivarius already has won three times, is on his summer schedule and mentioned a possible run in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe this fall.

* Battleground, the first foal to race produced by Breeders’ Cup Turf winner, Found, captured the listed Chesham Stakes, a seven-furlong race for 2-year-olds, by 2 1/2 lengths. Ryan Moore rode Battleground, who’d been fifth at Naas in Ireland his lone previous start, for trainer Aidan O’Brien.

* Jim Crowley continued his incredible Royal Ascot 2020 meeting winning his fifth and sixth races of the week aboard Molatham, in the Group 3 Jersey Stakes, and Khaloosy, who proved best in the Brittania Stakes.