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Day 1 saw a great win for Australia.
That was Alfoora who became the 6th Aussie winner of the King Charles III formerly the King's Stand. He had received a great prep by trainer Henry Dwyer and was g4iven a top ride from jockey Oisin Murphy who must now be in consideration for Honorary Aussie Citizenship! Regional came flying home for second and finished just ahead of a tiring Big Evs who had found himself in the lead without cover and had to do the hard yards.
The sunny afternoon started off with the Royal procession – always a splendid start – and then the Queen Anne following the same route although the route some of the horses – namely the French runners Big Rock and Facteur Cheval whose jockeys chose to go to the far rail while all the other runners came down the stand side. On that side Charyn (a lovely grey) was always prominent and got a good ride from de Sousa and a win by 2 ¼ lengths over Aussie-owned Docklands (who could be a factor in our Spring Carnival) and our "roughie" Maljoom ran third.
We said that in the Coventry with 23 2yos running anything could happen and that was what happened. There was a record trifecta of 122,667 Sterling (for 1.00)(AU$ 233,922.46). The winner Rashabar ran in the well-known at Ascot colours of the Sangster family and was a first G1 for the very emotional 18yo Billy Loughnane. They had started on 80/1, the second Electrolyte under Hollie Doyle only a nose away in second and they were on 40/1 and third Columnist a head away and he was on 50/1.
Al Qudra was not a bad run in 5th so he stays in the Little Black Book but Camille Pissaro goes out after an extremely disappointing run.
The St James's Palace went to Rosallion who continued his fine form with a good ride from Sean Levey to defeat Henry Longfellow, much improved, in second and our roughie Metropolitan third after encountering traffic problems when he got boxed in on the rails.
And so to bed!
