Queen finishes on a high after battle royal goes to Dartmouth

Gutsy colt gives Stoute 75th Royal Ascot success Moore treble includes tight win on Twilight Son

The Queen ended an up-and-down five days at Royal Ascot on a high yesterday when Dartmouth, the last throw of the dice this week as far as her involvement as an owner-breeder was concerned, won the Hardwicke Stakes in very tenacious style.

The improving four-year-old, trained by Sir Michael Stoute and ridden by Olivier Peslier, had a terrific ding-dong battle through the last furlong with Highland Reel and, having won by a head, had to survive a stewards’ inquiry, the outcome of which was never really in doubt.

Though the very progressive Dartmouth leaned on the runner-up late on, Seamie Heffernan, who had already dropped his stick, never had to stop riding. At a lesser meeting, some stewards would not even have bothered having the jockeys in and what it came down to was one horse wanting to win twice as much as the other.

It was the Queen’s 23rd Royal Ascot winner, her first since Estimate won the Gold Cup in 2012, and it took Stoute’s tally to 75, equalling the record set by the late Sir Henry Cecil. None of her previous six runners at this meeting had troubled the judge and one of them, Guy Fawkes, was put down after fracturing a leg on Thursday.

John Warren, her racing adviser, said: “When Estimate won the Gold Cup, everything went very smoothly throughout the race and today was very similar. Turning in, Olivier was sitting confident and the Queen tapped me on the arm and said: ‘It’s all going rather well, isn’t it?’ He’s a very genuine horse and that stood him in good stead.”

He added: “A winner is a huge big deal for her and to have one here is fantastic. She never expects anything. You can’t stage-manage a winner at this racecourse and so many big owners haven’t hit the board here this week. We thought Dartmouth was a gutsy Group Three horse who might squeak a Group Two. We didn’t think he would handle the ground but we can take a chance now in a Group One over a mile and a half and know he won’t let the side down.”

Stoute, who was registering a 10th Hardwicke Stakes, said: “He’s a lovely horse – everyone in the yard is very fond of him. He’s stepped up all year.

“We put him in the John Porter at Chelmsford, he stepped up to the Ormonde at Chester and it was another big step up here. It’s a big thrill – the Queen loves a winner anywhere but particularly here.

“I don’t think she was nervous about the inquiry and after the 5.00 last night [when his Kings Fete suffered worse interference], I couldn’t be nervous. She’s beaming now and I don’t think people realise how much she knows – she’s extremely knowledgable.”

Having received the trophy from her granddaughter Princess Beatrice, who exclaimed “Oh, Granny!” as she passed it over, the Queen presented the trophy to the connections of Twilight Son, the 7-2 winner of the Diamond Jubilee Stakes, who became Ryan Moore’s sixth winner of the meeting, third on the day, and put him in an unassailable position in the jockey’s title.

Indeed, his desertion of Dartmouth in favour of Exosphere in the Hardwicke was just about the only blot on his card yesterday and he was possibly the difference on Henry Candy’s Twilight Son, who beat Gold Fun by a neck, although only half a length separated the first five home.

Candy, a natural-born pessimist, explained that after the four-year-old had been beaten into fifth at York on his reappearance he realised he needed to get more work stuck into him.

“I’ve been quite hard on him,” he said. “I’ve never come here thinking we’d have a winner but we’ve had a few near-misses. I thought we’d be third when I saw Frankie steaming up the nearside on Magical Memory but the horse and jockey dug deep.”

He then recalled taking Twilight Son and La Rioja to gallop at Newbury recently and both getting loose. “It wasn’t very funny at the time,” he said deadpan, before adding: “I could do without mornings like that.”