ROYAL HUNT CUP

THE last time Ireland won the Royal Hunt Cup, Bobby Moore was raising the Jules Rimet trophy for England. ‘Fifty years of hurt’ has become something of a convenient cliché and the similarities end there because, while England’s football supporters have gone on hurting, Ireland has won far too many top racing prizes to be all that concerned.

Still, it was good to set the record straight, as Michael Halford’s Portage did at 10/1. Godolphin were strongly represented, the winner being joined by Lincoln hero Secret Brief and outsider Carry On Deryck, but it was Portage who made ground smoothly towards the far side.

Portage picked off Early Morning and kept on strongly for James Doyle to account for Librisa Breeze, the pair racing wide apart, with Mitchum Swagger and Azraff filling the minor places.

Sir Michael Stoute’s 13/2 favourite Convey was very disappointing and finished in the ruck.

A CLASS ACT

Halford clearly knew what he had on his hands because Portage had run only 11 days previously, picking up a listed event at the Curragh and a 5lb penalty into the bargain. It made no difference and, on this occasion, reverting to a multi-runner handicap – he finished second in the Irish Cambridgeshire and fifth in the Newmarket equivalent – he looked a class act with a possible tilt at pattern company by no means out of the question.

Perhaps surprisingly, this was the trainer’s first Royal Ascot winner, though it will not be his last.

“This has been the target since the Newmarket fifth,” he related.

“He’s grown up and matured a lot since he ran unplaced in the Britannia here last year. We knew he would get the trip really well today and he handled soft ground when he won here on King George day last summer.

“It’s very special for us. Sheikh Mohammed has been a wonderful supporter and shown great loyalty to us. This helps to repay him in a small way.”

For the record, that winner in 1966 was Continuation, trained by Seamus McGrath and ridden by Johnny Roe. There were fewer backers that day at 25/1.