Aidan O’Brien may have unearthed another St Leger hopeful after Illinois stayed on strongly to claim the Group 2 Queen's Vase on day two of Royal Ascot.
The Aidan O'Brien-trained Illinois stayed on stoutly in the Queen's Vase Stakes to provide Ryan Moore with his 80th Royal Ascot winner.
Ryan Moore always looked to be in pole position on the son of Galileo as AMO Racing's Mr Hampstead set the pace. The tempo looked like a steady one for much of the one-mile six-furlong contest and Moore was keen to commit his mount for home as the field approached the two pole.
Stablemate Highbury set off in hot pursuit under Wayne Lordan, but he never looked likely to reel in the leader, who galloped on strongly to land the odds at 7/4 by a length and a quarter.
Highbury filled the silver medal spot to give team Ballydoyle a one-two in the contest, with Jessica Harrington's Birdman performing creditably back in third.
Paddy Power was seemingly impressed and cut the winner to 6/1 (from 8s) for the final British Classic of the season at Doncaster in September.
"We felt any of the three could win. Ryan made the decision to ride Illinois, and he had the choice of the King Edward VII Stakes or this race. When Diego Velazquez got routed to the King Edward, this horse got rerouted to here. He is obviously a St Leger-type horse and is going to improve from three to four," said O'Brien, who was winning the contest for a staggering eighth time.
O'Brien added: "We will probably take our time with Illinois and let him have the chance to develop the way he wants to. If City Of Troy wasn't there, he'd probably have been pitched in much steeper, much earlier. Because City Of Troy was there, we were able to lay off those types of horses and give them a chance to mature. That's what he is, he's going to be a mile-and-a-half, mile-and-six horse and he's going to get better from three to four. He is a bit of a baby mentally still, so he might have a little rest now and maybe go to York on the way to the Leger, something like that.
On whether Illinois could prove a potential Gold Cup horse in time, O'Brien said: "I think he might have a little bit more class than a Cup horse. His sister won the Arc, so he's that type. Ryan said he was caught in a position all the way through the race that he would have preferred not to have been in; he was neither up nor back and he wasn't getting an easy lead. He had to do it tough. He went to the front, then he flattened out – he said the race was over, then he had to ask him to come again. He probably learnt a lot today.
It was an 80th Royal Ascot success for the winning rider, who expects there to be plenty more to come from Illinois as time goes on. "Illinois has plenty of talent," said Moore. "He is doing a few things wrong still. At Lingfield, he hung right so we thought it would suit him coming here today, but he hung left with me. He has a good engine; he'll keep improving and is a real nice staying horse.
When asked whether he would be a Gold Cup horse in time, Moore added: "I wouldn't say he has to go that far. I think he'll get a bit more professional, and you'll see a better horse. He doesn't need to go that far yet."
