RIGHT ROYAL ASCOT
Why this can be another...
Michael Bell believes Fabricate, leading contender for the Queen’s Vase on Friday, represents his best ever chance of training a winner for the Queen at Royal ascot.
The Newmarket trainer is also hoping that after a 2014 season which failed to deliver a Group-race success — the first time that has happened to Bell since 2000 — the promising young stayer can lay down credentials as a big-race contender for the future.
Fabricate, who made his debut with a third place at Newbury in april, is following a path that has delivered success in the past for the Queen.
The son of sire Makfi won the same Salisbury maiden at the start of May as her Majesty’s 2012 Queen’s Vase winner estimate, who went on to give the monarch her biggest victory in modern times in the 2013 Gold cup. Significantly, royal bloodstock adviser John Warren, assessing Fabricate, whose dam Flight Of Fancy was second in the 2001 Oaks, said: ‘he could be an important stayer in the future.’
Bell said: ‘he is the best chance i have had of training a winner at the meeting for the Queen. his season has gone like clockwork. after Salisbury we felt he needed more experience so he ran in and won a handicap at haydock.
‘There was strength in depth in that race and Yarrow, who he beat at Salisbury, might re- oppose us in the Queen’s Vase. That is a good sign — it shows her trainer, Sir Michael Stoute, holds her in pretty high regard.
‘To beat her convincingly bodes well for Fabricate’s ability. he is a lazy horse, which is what you need in stayers — the lazier they are the better they are because they conserve energy.’
Bell, who has booked adam Kirby to ride Fabricate, has enjoyed royal patronage since 2006, the year after his Derby success with Motivator.
The Queen, with eight horses, has more in his care than any other owner and he is also confident the royal colours will be carried with credit by Touchline in Wednesday’s Sandringham Stakes. it is a race in which he has history. Bell has trained six Royal ascot winners and two of them — Red evie (2006) and Moneycantbuymelove (2009) — came in the Sandringham Stakes.
Bell added: ‘Touchline has been trained for the race and i am very excited about her as well. Both she and Fabricate are going there with chances.
‘To have two runners you are excited about for the Queen is amazing.’
an injury to Bell’s 2013 Oaks third and Group Two Park hill Stakes winner The lark stripped his stable of a class act last season. Bell also lost globetrotting dual Group One winner Wigmore hall to a fatal injury.
Bell concedes it left his stable, which enjoyed success in the 2009 english and irish Oaks with Sariska, short of top quality. The trainer, who hopes epsom third Taper Tantrum makes the cut for the King George V Stakes and Jargon for the Britannia Stakes on Thursday, said: ‘We need a good horse — everyone does. We have been short of one for the last two or three years.
‘The lark retiring created a class void but the great thing about Flat racing is that it is a revolving door — you always have the next crop coming in.
‘You need the firepower but we have some nice horse this season and Fabricate has an improving profile. he could be quite good.
‘The fact he did not run as a two-yearold should stand him in good stead longer term. hopefully, he will be around for two or three years.’