Duke of Cambridge Stakes (Group 2)

IT was almost a quick double for Stoute and Dettori as Rawdaa hit the front inside the final furlong of this Group 2 contest over the straight mile, but once again, Danny Tudhope had judged the race to perfection and he swooped through to grab the spoils on Sheikh Rashid Dalmook Al Maktoum’s Move Swiftly. It was Tudhope’s third success of the week, enough to put him top of the leading jockey’s table until Ryan Moore scored on Southern Hills later.

This was also a second winner of the week for William Haggas, and a 10th overall. I Can Fly, the race favourite, on whom Ryan Moore rode for Aidan O’Brien, finished an honourable third under a penalty for her Boomerang Stakes win last autumn.

This wasn’t exactly part of a grand plan for Move Swiftly, and there is a reason why she holds no entries in early-closing group races, as her trainer told reporters:“I’m very proud of what everyone has done. She’s been hard work, but she’s very tough and very genuine. She went off to be covered and, fortunately, didn’t take to New Approach, so she came back and this is the result. I haven’t got any plans for her.”

The placed fillies emerged with plenty of credit, and unlike the winner, both have entries in the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes over a mile at Newmarket’s July Meeting, and while that appears to be the plan for I Can Fly, Sir Michael feels that a return to 10 furlongs is more likely for Rawdaa.

Royal Hunt Cup

HIGH numbers came to the fore in the day’s big handicap, with Sheikh Hamdan’s Afaak holding the late thrust of Clon Coulis to end Charlie Hills’s barren run at the track, which had stretched back to 2015. It was some consolation for owner, trainer and jockey Jim Crowley after the defeat of Battaash in the King’s Stand.

Gelded since disappointing in the Cambridgeshire, the son of 1000 Guineas and Coronation Stakes heroine Ghanaati was improving on last year’s second in this race, and will look fairly treated under a penalty for the Diamond Jubilee edition of the John Smith’s Cup at York next month. Hills suggested a step up to pattern company for Afaak, while also revealing that Phoenix Of Spain had come out of his disappointing run in the St James’s Palace Stakes stiff and sore, and that he would be on the easy list for a few weeks as a result.

Clon Coulis and Kynren (fifth) both ran well for veteran trainer David Barron, with the former failing by just a nose on a belated return to handicap company, and she looks well suited by the test, travelling well under a typically patient Jamie Spencer and throwing down a big challenge on soft ground which suits her well. She’s only had three starts in handicaps, and has never finished worse than second, so it will be interesting to see how she is campaigned as she is clearly up to winning more blacktype, but is ideally suited by an end to end gallop which she’s more likely to get in big handicaps.

Raising Sand again did his syndicate owners proud with another big run on easy ground at Ascot, and he will be easy to place with so many valuable events at the course over the coming months, while John Gosden’s Stylehunter ran well again at this meeting (sixth in the Britannia last year), and will appreciate a return to farther.

Last year’s winner Settle For Bay appeared to be coming to hand for David Marnane, but he has run poorly in two previous runs on testing ground, and did so again here. He can be forgiven the run for that reason, and is slipping back to a workable mark.