Circus Maximus rewards late entry in St James’s Palace at Royal Ascot
Aidan O’Brien’s remarks after the St James’s Palace Stakes were, as always, a masterclass . . . in deflection. Even when John Magnier, his boss, suggested that dropping Circus Maximus back from a mile and a half to a mile less than three weeks after the Derby had been O’Brien’s idea, the trainer begged to differ and credit his team.
But the latest of O’Brien’s record eight successes in this Group One contest was quite something, even for a trainer whose big-race wins need to be weighed rather than counted.
A mile – eight furlongs – is such a thoroughly different test from the 12 of the Derby that a rough equivalent for a human athlete might be to drop from the 1500m to the 400m. And Circus Maximus is a horse that won over 10 furlongs on heavy going last month, when he ground it out like a stayer.
Sporting a set of blinkers to “sharpen him up”, however, Circus Maximus made the most of a good draw against the rail in stall one to track the lead into the straight as a couple of his opponents, including the fast-finishing runner-up King Of Comedy, were forced to wait to launch a challenge. Ryan Moore was able to kick for home at a moment of his choosing and, though Too Darn Hot, the favourite, also did his best to run him down, Circus Maximus stayed on to win by a neck and threequarters of a length.
The decision to run here was such a last-minute affair that it took a £45,000 supplementary fee to get him into the race earlier in the week, a gamble that paid off handsomely. “They let us know at a quarter to 12 [the deadline] that they were thinking of doing this and we ran with it,” O’Brien said.
“It was a big challenge for the horse, he had to deal with coming back [in trip] like that. We were worried that the pace was going to be completely different over a mile.
“We just put the blinkers on him because we were coming back to a mile and we didn’t have a second chance, just to sharpen him a little bit. He needed to be focused very quick and he didn’t have a lot of time to learn about it.”
The likelihood now is that Circus Maximus will stick at a mile, with the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood in late July one possible destination if the trainer feels he will act on the track.
John Gosden, who saddled both the runner-up and third horses home, suggested that “one [King Of Comedy] ran out of track and the other [Too Darn Hot] found that it was a little too stiff a mile.”
Too Darn Hot is likewise a possible runner at Goodwood, where the easier mile should be more to his liking, but last year’s outstanding juvenile has now been beaten three times at three and will go to Sussex with something to prove.
O’Brien has had a slow start to the week at a couple of recent Royal meetings but Circus Maximus’s victory was his second win in four races, after Arizona justified favouritism in the Coventry Stakes. This was O’Brien’s ninth win in the meeting’s most significant juvenile race and, though only one of the previous eight – Henrythenavigator – has gone on to win the 2,000 Guineas, Arizona led a 1-2-3 for the first three horses in the betting and the form looks strong.
“This is the first day that he has had to learn,” O’Brien said. “He was a little bit lost through the race but he came home really well. You’d imagine that he would be a miler next year.”
Arizona is a 14-1 chance for next year’s Classic, while Threat, the runnerup on Tuesday, is a 25-1 chance.
There was immediate drama in the meeting’s opening race as Accidental Agent, last year’s Queen Anne Stakes winner, planted in the stalls and in effect refused to race. The frustration for Eve Johnson Houghton, his trainer, can only have been compounded when Lord Glitters, who was the runner-up 12 months ago, came with a strong run to register his first Group One win at 14-1.
Lord Glitters was a third Royal Ascot winner for his jockey, Danny Tudhope, and his first in one of the week’s Group Ones, and he completed a fine day’s work when Addeybb took the concluding Wolferton Stakes.
He is alongside Ryan Moore on two wins for the week, while James Doyle, who took the King’s Stand Stakes on Blue Point, and Richard Kingscote, successful on The Grand Visir in the Ascot Stakes, have one apiece.
Haggas to test the going before risking Sea Of Class
William Haggas will walk the track at Ascot on Wednesday morning before deciding whether to allow Sea Of Class, last year’s narrow runner-up behind Enable in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, to take her chance in the card’s feature race, the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.
Persistent rain at Ascot during the opening card of the Royal meeting saw the official going description changed to soft over the course of the day, having been good, good-to-soft in places overnight.
“She’s in terrific form and she’s done everything that I wanted her to,” Haggas told ITV Racing, “[but] I’m really not sure about the ground and I’ll talk to Mrs Tsui [Sea Of Class’s owner] in the morning.
“We’re not going to make any hasty decisions tonight. We’ll have a look at the track in the morning and decide. I really want to run her but I don’t want to bottom her at this stage of the season.
“But she’s in great form and she looks great. It’s a fabulous race but all the races she’s going to run in are going to be fabulous races.
“We just want to make the right decision by her and, as I stress, I am keen to run but I don’t want to bottom her.”