BARNEY BOOST FOR SHEIK
Record-breaker’s brilliant win gives Godolphin lift-off
Timing is everything in sport. get it right and you look brilliant. muck it up and you can look a chump. Sheik mohammed’s powerful godolphin team, criticised for under-performance and a stable in turmoil in recent weeks, got it right spectacularly on the opening day of Royal Ascot.
And all on the 40th anniversary of the future ruler of Dubai taking the train to Brighton to watch John Dunlop’s filly Hatta win him his first race.
First Richard Fahey-trained Ribchester underlined his status as Europe’s best older miler by winning the £685,000 Queen Anne Stakes in a track-record time under William Buick.
Then Richard Hannon’s Barney Roy, with jockey James Doyle in the godolphin blue silks, avenged his 2,000 guineas defeat at the hands of Churchill in the £400,000 St James’s Palace Stakes, also in a new best time.
Piping some icing on the cake, godolphin ended the day with a Charlie Appleby-trained one-two in the Windsor Castle Stakes as Buick-ridden 16-1 shot Sound And Silence beat Doyle-partnered 12-1 chance Roussel by a neck.
no wonder the Sheik looked satisfied as he said: ‘Royal Ascot is a great place to win but it is very difficult to win here because everyone comes.
‘in life there is no winning post. You have to keep going or others will catch you up.’
The problem for the Sheik is that rivals have been engulfing godolphin of late and a familiar face was missing from their celebrations yesterday.
John Ferguson, who had promised to shake up the organisation, resigned a fortnight ago as rifts and disharmony at the stable were laid bare. godolphin’s struggle to match the success of trainer Aidan O’Brien and his Coolmore Stud backers had claimed a significant victim.
Ferguson was a central figure in the recruitment of Barney Roy and Ribchester, but he was not here to enjoy their greatest days. What was that about timing?
The O’Brien-Coolmore juggernaut cannot be held back for long and they bagged a second place and two thirds on day one.
But in Ribchester and Barney Roy, at least godolphin have top-notch ammunition for the summer ahead, and that picture will look even rosier if John gosden-trained Jack Hobbs can carry their silks to victory in this afternoon’s feature Prince of Wales’s Stakes.
Ribchester could be heading to the Sussex Stakes at glorious goodwood with Yorkshire-based Fahey, who rates the colt as the best he has trained.
Fahey said: ‘He is pretty smart. William doesn’t feel the tank is empty yet and the horse is starting to think he is good now, which is a good thing in a racehorse.’
Hannon has an eye on stepping up Barney Roy to a mile and a quarter in next month’s Coral Eclipse Stakes at Sandown.
Hannon admitted that after Barney Roy’s unlucky guineas defeat at newmarket and the trainer’s blank at the royal meeting last year, the cosy length win from O’Brien’s Lancaster Bomber — with odds-on favourite Churchill a below-par fourth — was the perfect tonic.
He said: ‘i always said if he won this week i’d be happy with that. Without him, you might have seen me hanging from a tree.
‘it is not so much revenge, more we thought he was a group One winner in waiting. i don’t think Churchill ran his best race but we were there to take advantage.’
in an interesting subplot, Sheik mohammed did not step up to the podium to receive either of the trophies for godolphin’s major triumphs.
They were accepted by his wife Princess Haya and son Sheik Hamdan.
Whether that was to spread the family joy or because there were Qatar logos on the podium was unclear.
Dubai is boycotting Qatar over allegations that the state has been funding terrorism.