Ribblesdale Stakes (Group 2)

THE Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes provided another winner for John and Thady Gosden, but not from an expected source, and it was 18/1 shot Loving Dream who provided Gosden’s man-at-arms Rab Havlin with just a second winner at Royal Ascot.

Loving Dream was always handy before making a bold bid for glory early in the straight, and while there were plenty of potential challengers, she held on grittily to post a three-quarter-length victory over Eshaada (Roger Varian/Jim Crowley) with Nicest (Donnacha O’Brien/Ger Ryan) beaten a total of two and a half lengths in third.

Although this was a surprise result, with Loving Dream a well-beaten favourite in the Lingfield Oaks Trial, there was late money for the filly, who is owned and bred by Trevor and Libby Harris of Lordship Stud; she was available at 50 on the exchanges a few minutes before the off, and she was a point shorter on Betfair’s SP than on course, showing how quickly that money arrived.

Very wide

The runner-up can be viewed as unlucky as she was left poorly placed and had to come very wide to challenge, otherwise she may well have won, but credit must go to the winner who kicked on early and had a wall of horses queueing up to take her on at the furlong pole.

The winner was reversing Lingfield form with Aidan O’Brien’s Divinely, who was fourth here, and she was also beaten by race favourite Noon Star at Wetherby before that, and Gosden put that down to not making the most of the filly’s stamina. “At Lingfield, we were aware that we went too slow. Frankie rode Loving Dream and we said she needs more pace. Robert committed early today and made best use of her stamina. Obviously Eshaada came at her late. It didn’t look too rough, everyone had a go, but she’s very game, very honest and it was a wonderful positive ride by Robert, it really was.”

There were no immediate plans for the pair who fought out the finish, with Roger Varian mindful that it was quite an attritional contest, and inclined to give Eshaada time to recover. It would be no surprise to see the pair clash again in the British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes in October.