NAAS hosted Royal Ascot Trials Day last Sunday, and the most reliable recent pointer to the Royal meeting there has been the Coolmore Stud Irish EBF Fillies Sprint Stakes, subsequent Albany Stakes winners Fairy Godmother, Porta Fortuna and Meditate emerging from the race lately.

The 2026 version looked another strong contest, the time comparing well with the Lacken Stakes that followed and the first two pulling over six lengths clear of the third. Victorious was landing a second course and distance win in little more than three weeks, the first having come despite seeming to hit several ridges en route.

She avoided those humps and bumps on Sunday, but it did seem an issue elsewhere on the card, a handful of the juveniles unbalanced at various stages. Naas did work to alleviate this issue in the 2010s, and further efforts were carried out in late 2024, but it looked to cause problems again here.

Victorious beat a first-time starter in Controlla, and the suspicion is that the winner will uphold form next time given her trainer’s ability to get run-to-run improvement while she also had a bit in hand.

Fine piece of training

Controlla still hit a high level on debut, a fine piece of training from Robson De Aguiar, though it remains to be seen if she will be in the same yard next time out.

The other races of significance for Royal Ascot were also sprints, Havana Anna making a positive start to 2026 in landing the Lacken Stakes, albeit that the form is questionable with fillies rated 89 and 87 chasing her home and the favourite Charles Darwin finishing lame.

Havana Anna has much better form than this in her back catalogue, however, a second to True Love at Newmarket looking even stronger now, while she was having her first run back, Donnacha O’Brien suggesting that she would improve plenty.

O’Brien said he was working back from the Commonwealth Stakes, but while that is an obvious early target, she might be best over a stiff five furlongs. Havana Anna travelled best before being closed down late and had to show a willing attitude, something that was not always the case with her last season.

Misson in Control

Aidan O’Brien looked to have some star three-year-old sprinting colts at the start of the year in Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, though both have a bit to prove now, but the gelding Mission Central has plugged the gap to a degree, winning a second course listed race against older rivals in the Sole Power Stakes.

Both of those wins have come with the advantage of a draw bias, and against a similar set of opponents, most of them short on potential, but he knows how to win and seems particularly well-suited by the minimum trip.

THE most impressive winner at Naas on Sunday was Jagged Edge in the mile handicap for older horses, sweeping down the outside from rear to win going away, the only winner on the round course during the card to come from off the pace.

That said, the early pace was much stronger in this race than the other races on the round track.

Jagged Edge was having his first start for Stephen Thorne, bought for 125,000gns out of the Dermot Weld yard in October, and things had not been straightforward since, his new trainer saying afterwards that the initial plan had been the Irish Lincoln but he scoped poorly in the week beforehand and had needed antibiotics afterwards, just ready to start off here.

All that suggests he should improve for this run but a new mark of 103 (up 10lbs) will demand more, and he does have an excellent record fresh, his figures off a break now reading: 3111.

Perhaps he has improved, very possible given this was just his sixth run, but that fresh angle is something to keep in mind later in the year.

Trials aspect

Johnny Murtagh did not have a winner at Naas, but he is one of the trainers that seems to get the trials aspect of meetings like this, the idea being that a horse does not have to win now if the race puts something into them.

A couple of his runners from Sunday fit the profile of likely improvers next time, both having run over trips short of their best. Latin America has made a good start to his career, but the drop to a mile in the opener on Sunday looked all against him, the steady pace not suiting either.

In the circumstances, he did well to finish a closing third, doing best of those that raced off the pace and not knocked about. He is inclined to race on and off the bridle, but might have more speed than it initially appears, so perhaps a stiff mile like Ascot will suit.

His stablemate Tashakour was similar, finishing fourth from off a steady pace in the Owenstown Stud, looking in need of a stiffer test.

Murtagh is 1 from 33 with his Royal Ascot runners since he started training, something that points to the competitiveness of the meeting as much as anything, but he has also had seven places in that time with four of them coming in the last two years.

He is getting close, and this might be the year for another winner.

THE early season form of Joseph O’Brien has been covered here a few times already, but we may be reaching a point where this is not just a hot start but a hot season.

The first big flat meeting of the Irish campaign is this weekend, the Guineas representing the quarter-way point of the season, and O’Brien is already a long way ahead of his previous totals at this stage of the year.

As of the end of racing at Roscommon on Monday, he has 36 winners on the turf in Ireland in March, April and May, well clear of his figures in the five other post-pandemic years when the numbers were 25, 21, 22, 15 and 22 by the end of May.

Furthermore, his win strike-rate in Ireland during this period has been 18.7%, the average of the previous five years being 12.7%, while also adding a Chester Cup win with A Piece Of Heaven. He has had multiple winners on 12 racing days already this season.

Most runners

Per Irishracing.com, he has had by far the most individual runners this season, 122 as of last Monday, with his father next in with 70.

That is hardly unusual given that he is the only yard to break 200 individual runners in a season during the last five campaigns, doing it each of those years, and it seems possible he will push towards the 300s this time around.

Limestone was another good winner for him at Navan on Saturday in the featured Yeats Stakes, proving himself in tougher circumstances than he faced when getting a soft lead at Cork to win on return.

Dylan Browne McMonagle rode him with confidence, allowing a couple of others to go at it early in the straight before picking them up late while himself and the runner-up pulled well clear of the rest.