HIGHLIGHT of Royal Ascot week? Alpha Centauri. It is difficult to get away from Alpha Centauri.

She was brilliant. She travelled up easily with the fast pace, and she quickened off it. She came six lengths clear of Threading, who in turn came nicely clear of Veracious, and she smashed the track record.

The strong even pace facilitated a fast time, as did the ground, but Alpha Centauri still had to run fast enough to beat the course record. And she smashed it. She went 1.33secs faster than Barney Roy did in the St James’s Palace Stakes last year.

Colm O’Donoghue gave her a fine ride. A keep-everything-simple no-nonsense ride does not win ride of the season, it lacks drama, but that is what makes it so good. O’Donoghue quickly had his filly into a nice racing rhythm up on the outside and just off the pace. He was as quiet as he could be on her back, allowed her go at her own pace insofar as he could, maximising efficiency, minimising energy-consumption.

We know now that the Mastercraftsman filly had tons in hand, that she probably would have won regardless of where she had raced, regardless of how she had been ridden, regardless of where she had been positioned through her race. But her rider obviously couldn’t have known that for sure at the time. He gave her a ride that maximised her chance of winning the race, and that is a top ride in any context.

It was some training performance too by Jessica Harrington to produce her filly in the form that she was in on the day. Only just beaten in the Albany Stakes last year, the Niarchos Family’s filly was a little bit of a forgotten filly at the start of this year on the back of her defeat in the Moyglare Stud Stakes and her 10th-place finish in the Guineas trial at Leopardstown on her debut this term. But both of those races were run on easy ground, and her trainer has been saying for over a year now that she just doesn’t operate on soft ground.

She had her fast ground when she won the Irish Guineas, thereby providing her trainer with her first win in a classic, and she had her fast ground again on Friday when she put up one of the performances – if not the performance – of the season so far.

In so doing, she brought up her trainer’s first Royal Ascot victory. Alpha Centauri was her trainer’s seventh runner of seven for the week, it was her last chance of a Royal Ascot winner in 2018 and, after Torcedor’s crossbar-hitting run in the Gold Cup, she could have been forgiven for thinking that it might not be her week. But it was. And how.

So that’s a Coronation Stakes now to go with an Irish 1000 Guineas and a National Stakes. Add them to Champion Chases and Arkles and Cheltenham Gold Cups and RSA Chases and Irish Gold Cups and Punchestown Gold Cups and Champion Hurdles and Aintree Hurdles and Irish Grand Nationals.

They call her the queen of Irish racing.