SHA TIN SELECTIONS
(Sunday, June 23, 2019)
Race 1: #14 Cour Valant, #8 Adonis, #6 Exponents, #5 Starlot
Race 2: #8 Dor Dor, #4 Ho Ho Feel, #6 Sangria, #2 London Hall
Race 3: #8 Flying Thunder, #6 Styling City, #4 Time To Celebrate, #7 Dragon General
Race 4: #8 Supreme Plus, #7 Phenomenal, #11 My Winner, #6 Ezra
Race 5: #5 Chicken Dance, #12 Lightning Treasure, #2 Super Lucky, #3 Sun Sun Fa Fa
Closing day at Royal Ascot could be a big day for Godolphin.
The global racing and breeding powerhouse starts favored Blue Point in the featured Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes, while Masar runs in the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes, his first race since winning the 2018 Epsom Derby. Charlie Appleby trains both horses.
A driving rainstorm could not deter Crystal Ocean from recording his first win in a Group 1 race in Wednesday’s $944,475 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in England.
Ridden by Frankie Dettori, Crystal Ocean stalked pacesetter Hunting Horn for the first mile and held off a late threat from the favored Magical to win the richest race of the prestigious five-day meeting by 1 1/4 lengths.
The filly Hermosa and colt Ten Sovereigns may give Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien a sweep of the two Group 1 races at Royal Ascot on Friday.
As of Wednesday, Hermosa was even-money in early betting to win her third consecutive Group 1 race in the $631,150 Coronation Stakes at a mile for 3-year-old fillies.
Circus Maximus was cut back from longer distances to a mile and gave trainer Aidan O’Brien and jockey Ryan Moore their second big-race win on opening day of the 2019 Royal Ascot meeting by winning the Group 1 St. James’s Palace Stakes.
Earlier on the card, 2-year-old Arizona won the Group 2 Coventry stakes for Moore and O’Brien.
Blue Point confirmed his status as one of the best sprinters in the world by winning the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes at Ascot on Tuesday for the second year in a row.
Just as in 2018, Blue Point defeated top-class sprinter Battaash in the five-furlong, straight course King’s Stand. The margin of victory fell from 1 ¾ lengths a year ago to 1 ¼ lengths this time, but there was no doubt who was the best sprinter in the King’s Stand.
The turf at Ascot was drying and upgraded to “good” on Monday as any real chance of Stradivarius losing the Gold Cup on Thursday’s card at Royal Ascot began evaporating.
John Gosden, who trains Stradivarius for breeder Bjorn Nielsen, expressed concern early this week over wet conditions for Stradivarius, but anything like the ground on offer Monday would likely send the horse to his second straight win in the 2 ½-mile Gold Cup. While there is little appetite in North America for true staying races, the Group 1, $627,228 Gold Cup is one of Royal Ascot’s most coveted prizes.
Among them, the eight runners in Wednesday’s Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in England have won 29 stakes, including nine Group 1 or Grade 1 races.
Yet, the two leading contenders – the 4-year-old fillies Magical and Sea of Class – are best known for races they lost narrowly in the last year. Magical, the 9-5 favorite as of Monday, was second to Enable in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs last November. Sea of Class (11-4) was second in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in Paris last October, also to Enable, in her most recent start.
They don’t mess around at Royal Ascot. Once the preliminaries – like placing bets on the color of the outfit in which the queen will arrive in the royal carriage to inaugurate the festivities – have been completed, the five-day meeting begins with a bang, the $755,500 Queen Anne Stakes, the first of three Group 1s among six races on the Royal meet’s opening card and a Win and You're In race for the Breeders' Cup Mile.
