IN a column centred around which tracks produce the most Royal Ascot two-year-old winners back in 2023, I found that the Curragh, Newmarket and Naas stood out as the marquee courses to note for juvenile riches at the Royal Meeting.

Surely after this year’s fixture, however, Navan is entitled to serious attention with their pre-Ascot two-year-old contests. What a result it was for the Co Meath track when delivering both the winners of the Coventry Stakes and Queen Mary Stakes.

For good measure, this week’s impressive Norfolk Stakes scorer Charles Darwin also won his maiden at Navan on April 26th.

The six-furlong maiden on May 17th that was won by Gstaad, with True Love three quarters of a length away in second, proved a key formline for the biggest week of the flat racing year.

It is also the race that was won two years ago by high-class sprinter Givemethebeatboys, who went through the ring for £1.1 million on the eve of Royal Ascot 2023 where he was fourth in the Coventry. Even a year before that, the same maiden threw up Broadhurst, a taking Irish Champions Festival handicap winner for Ballydoyle. He progressed to land the 2024 Hong Kong Derby (while racing under the name Massive Sovereign).

To go another step back, the 2016 winner of the same maiden Medicine Jack struck in the Group 2 Railway Stakes on his next start prior to finishing third behind Caravaggio in the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes.

Long story short, the 2025 renewal means that we ought to sit up and take proper note of who obliges next year.

Past runnings of the maiden won by Charles Darwin a month earlier indicate an even richer history.

The 2024 renewal was won by dual Group 1 and classic winner Camille Pissarro, Coventry Stakes hero River Tiber collected here in 2023, while the 2022 winner Aesop’s Fables landed the Group 2 Futurity Stakes on his next start. Masseto, who won a year before that, went on to be fourth in that season’s Coventry Stakes too. Perhaps the stiff Co Meath finish is setting young horses up ideally for another demanding climb at Royal Ascot.

FOR all that Gstaad was a dominant and taking winner of the Coventry Stakes on Tuesday, it felt like a case of absence making the heart grow fonder inside team Ballydoyle for Albert Einstein.

The ante-post favourite for Royal Ascot’s opening juvenile contest has long been spoken about in top terms by connections, and his two wins on home soil did little to dispel the suspicion he could be extremely high-class.

A setback ruled him out of the Coventry, but the strongest hint yet that Albert Einstein is the standout two-year-old in Aidan O’Brien’s arsenal came when the trainer pressed by ITV Racing’s Matt Chapman about the absent party following Gstaad’s three-length victory.

Chapman: “If Albert had been here, would you have fancied him to beat Gstaad or should we take it that this is a very good horse in his own right?”

O’Brien: “I think so but Albert is always just…”

Chapman: “Is he something else?”

O’Brien: “Yeah, always was. Very different. Something that we didn’t have before.”

Chapman: “So this Albert Einstein, the next time he appears, we should all just hold our breath for him?”

O’Brien: “From the first day he worked, he was probably the most different horse we’ve ever seen.”

Chapman: “Hold on, more different than City Of Troy, Aidan?”

O’Brien: “He’s so quick. What made him so different is that he was so quick always. We haven’t had a horse as quick as he was, but as big as he was, and maybe because he was so big we had to ease off him a little bit. He’s very exciting.”

Enough said. It sounds like whenever we get to see Albert Einstein next, he’ll be worth the wait.

IT was at the Irish Racing Writers’ annual Ballydoyle press morning in March that Aidan O’Brien stressed that we are dealing with a stallion who is “obviously a freak” when it comes to Wootton Bassett.

One particular result this week put into perspective the type of versatility he appears to be passing on to his stock.

Having struck with an impressive, unbeaten two-year-old named Rising Power over five furlongs at Sandown last Saturday, he only went and provided the answer to the Group 2 Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot over much more stamina-testing mile and six furlongs on Wednesday.

This came hot on the heels of him very nearly cracking a classic on Derby weekend at Epsom when Whirl was only denied a neck in the Oaks (12 furlongs), while his sons, Henri Matisse and Camille Pissarro have already tasted French Guineas (eight furlongs) and French Derby (10 and a half furlongs) success respectively this term.

The variety of trips over which the former champion French two-year-old is delivering high-class performers is most eyecatching.

In Ireland alone so far in 2025, Wootton Bassett has sired the winners of blacktype races over five, six, seven, nine, 10 and 13 furlongs. It appears there is no one set type of horse to come from him and these remain exciting times for the Coolmore team while continuing to roll out promising young stock by him every year.

IT’S probably quite harsh to consider that a horse who has won nine of his 17 starts, including a Champion Stakes and Prix d’Ispahan, thinks about the game a little, but that was the question left to be grappled with after Anmaat was worn down in the closing stages of the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes on Wednesday.

First and foremost, it must be stressed that Shadwell’s stalwart is a terrific stalwart to still be running at this level come the age of seven. He’s been well handled by Owen Burrows and has earned close to €1.8 million in prize money. He must be a joy to own.

But not for the first time, and for the second start in succession, it could be argued that he didn’t entirely set the world alight with his finishing effort this week.

Last month, Anmaat looked the likeliest winner of the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh when zooming through to challenge. He had the fastest individual sectionals of the race through the third last and second last furlongs.

However, he couldn’t quite finish the job against Los Angeles close home, with his final furlong at the Curragh only the fourth quickest time in the nine-runner field.

He traded at close to 1/9 on the exchanges in-running on that occasion, and it was another tough watch for his supporters at the Royal Meeting when trading as low as 9/10 before having no answer to the fast-finishing Ombudsman.

While he did extremely well to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat on testing ground in the Champion Stakes last autumn, there has been a theme to several of his defeats - trading short in-running. You can even go back to the 2021 Cambridgeshire when absolutely thrown in off a mark of 98. Sent off at 11/2, he hit a low of 1/5 in-running only to be reeled in by 40/1 shot Bedouin’s Story. Earlier that season, he was also twice beaten after hitting 1/3 and 1/2 mid-race.

Even though he had plenty of traffic problems in last year’s Champion Stakes, perhaps being dressed up until a late, late delivery in fact brought out the very best in him. He ended up being much more in the clear from a furlong down in the Prince Of Wales’s, and it possibly doesn’t suit him to the same extent at this top level.

No question, he can still be a live player in this division but he might well need race circumstances to fall very right for him to collect one of the top Group 1s again this season.