The weather held and so did our bank balance.
The latter thanks to some nice priced winners and each-ways, one of which was Isle of Jura in the Hardwicke who went off at 16/1 which is just to prove how little the UK markets know of the Middle East racing. With Callum Shepherd in the irons for George Scott he scored his 5th consecutive win with one of those after arriving in England. French runner Goliath ran a very good second and had been sent off on 18/1with Middle Earth third. Continuous and Desert Hero were both disappointing.
The QEII Jubilee saw Khaadem on 14/1 repeat his win of 2023. Believing had had gone off favourite after her good run earlier in the week but that run may just have taken the edge off and she finished fourth. Mill Stream was up there for most of the race and placed third and should manage to pick up a couple of races soon.
The Jersey Stakes was not the clash one had expected between River Tiber and Haatem as River Tiber was never in it and instead is was Frankel's half-bro Kikkuli who issued the challenge and nearly did it as there was only a bee's proverbial in it which officially gets called a nose. Johnny Murtagh's Chicago Critic took third with Ben Coen riding and they were 80/1!!!
The Wokingham was the usual cavalry charge or cavalry charges as the field split into two groups early on and eventually merged into one. Unequal Love 12/1 emerged the winner for William Haggas and Tom Marquand with favourite Dark Trooper second, sporting the Wathnan racing colours which we predict we will see a lot more of in future.
The week has produced some great memories for us – on Tueday Asfoora's win in the King Charles III and Metropolitan (our roughie) coming third in the St James's Palace on 20/1. Tuesday gave us Illinois and Birdman in the Queen's Vase, Running Lion in the Duke of Cambridge and an e/w on Horizon Dore in the Prince of Wales. Thursday our roughie Tropical Storm was second in the Norfolk on 16/1 and Shareholder the winner on 7/1 helped recoup what we lost on Whistlejacket and then Port Fairy won the Ribblesdale on 17/2. Not much luck in the Gold Cup as Kyprios was too short for us and Vauban ran fourth. We had a pretty good day on Friday starting off with Fairy Godmother winning the Albany and then Inisherin the Commonwealth Cup (even though he was pretty short) and then Porta Fortuna's win in the Coronation Cup on 13/2 replenished the coffers which had gone down a bit on Thursday but bounced back Friday and as can be seen from above continued to do so on Saturday. And topped it off with Calandagan 9/1 in the King Edward VII – quite a win too! One of our colleagues wrote that they couldn't describe it as a ballsy win as that was the part of the anatomy he was lacking.
