Seniority’s Royal appointment
Queen looking to land fourth Hunt Cup prize Bell says Fabricate can return to winning form
The Queen, who enjoyed her biggest winner of the season when Call To Mind won the Belmont Gold Cup in New York last Friday, will have two solid chances of adding to her tally of 23 winners at Royal Ascot next week with Fabricate and Elector.
However, her best chance is a possible third runner, Seniority, who picked up a 5lb penalty for his easy success in yesterday’s valuable Tote-sponsored Moulsham Mile at Chelmsford, which puts him on the cusp of getting in Wednesday’s Royal Hunt Cup, a race the Queen has won three times – in 1953, 1956 and 1992.
“Personally, I think he’ll struggle to get in,” said trainer William Haggas, who attempted to run the Dubawi gelding at Nottingham a while back but was thwarted by the ground turning soft. “I’ve looked at the last five runnings of the race and the lowest ratings were 97, 97, 97, 96 and 96. He’s now on 96. If he gets in, he’s got a chance.”
If he does make the cut, however, he would nearly start favourite off bottom weight. So, whatever matters of state occur on Monday lunchtime, what horses get into the Hunt Cup will, no doubt, be quite high on the Queen’s agenda.
Her 23rd and most recent Royal Ascot winner was Dartmouth in 2016. However, her 22nd and most famous Ascot winner came in 2013 when Estimate won the Gold Cup, a race which might be on Call To Mind’s radar a year from now.
Fabricate, who won the Magnolia Stakes first time out this season before being narrowly beaten by Crystal Ocean at Sandown, has a good chance in the Wolferton Handicap, according to his trainer, Michael Bell.
“You can put a line through his last run because of the ground but, on his Sandown form in April, he is right in the mix,” said Bell, who believes his unbeaten filly Main Desire, currently a 20-1 shot for the Commonwealth Cup, is potentially the best sprinter he has trained.
Elector, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, is rated as something of a “dark horse” by the Queen’s racing adviser, John Warren. He will run in either the King George V Handicap (Thursday) or the King Edward VII Stakes (Friday). “Sir Michael reckons he is better than a handicapper,” said Warren. “He’s an unexposed improver and if it’s not a vintage King Edward he might well go for that rather than taking the chance on a good draw in the King George V.
“The Queen has had more runners in other years, but she has only a dozen three or four-year-olds in training and the rest are two-yearolds, so to have two, possibly three, going there is not bad. It’s just the way the cookie crumbles. It’s not a big-numbers operation.”