Betfair Official Blog

Royal Ascot: The final day final word

Simon Rowlands on a fully-packed five dayer in Berkshire

Let me be the last to say "well done" to Her Majesty the Queen, for her Royal Ascot winner Free Agent in the Chesham Stakes. That's Liz 1, Rowley 0. As a matter of fact, I did not lay the horse, as the forecast [2.74] on Betfair proved to be well wide of the mark, with the Betfair SP [4.5] (reduction factor of 11.9%). But, still.

My favourite thread on the Betfair Forum was not any of those (not all of them sincere) entitled "well done Her Majesty" or similar, but Sugarfoot's "well done all taxpayers...must be nice to have another Royal Ascot winner". Mystifyingly, the thread soon disappeared...

Free Agent looked an unlikely winner for a long way and hit [20.0] in-running before coming with a strong challenge to beat Seaway by two-and-a-quarter lengths. Chesham winners tend not to make a huge impact subsequently, but that looked a useful effort with the promise of more to come at longer trips.

The Hardwicke Stakes was more like it, with my place lay of Spanish Moon at around [1.6] coming up trumps as he trailed home in sixth. Macarthur prevailed in a tight finish with Multidimensional. Good horse though Macarthur is, he has looked some way inferior to several others in the Ballydoyle team (not least Soldier of Fortune last time at Epsom) and yet went off at a short price here, which tells you what you need to know about the overall strength of the race. I doubt he's suddenly become a world beater.

The Golden Jubilee proved a bit of a head-scratcher, with outsider Kingsgate Native -tenth here on Tuesday - beating the ex-South African War Artist and his fellow three-year-old Sir Gerry. It is again hard to believe that this is top-drawer stuff. Takeover Target, who was second on Tuesday, went the way of all good place bets by weakening into fourth late on, but not until after he was matched at an in-running low of [2.02] on the win market and [1.01] on the place market.

The result of the Wokingham Handicap was one in the eye for those who continued to maintain that high numbers would be disadvantaged, with the winner Big Timer coming from stall 28 of 28 and the second Beaver Patrol coming from stall 2. Indeed, first, third and fifth ended up towards the centre of the track. There was a small but lively market on winning stalls on Betfair before this, with stalls 20 to 28 collectively traded at a remarkable [8.0]! I managed to get only [5.2]...

Front-running has been seen to good effect during the meeting, and Sugar Ray made virtually all under Ryan Moore to win the Duke of Edinburgh Handicap from the heavily backed Mad Rush.

Moore had to play second fiddle to Johnny Murtagh in the concluding Queen Alexandra Stakes, however, with the meeting's top rider making it six for the week by steering Honolulu to success. Honolulu was not a good result for me, as I had place laid him and knew my fate soon after they turned in. There will be beans on toast and a mug of coffee for me tonight, rather than champagne and canapés.

So, how will Royal Ascot in 2008 be remembered? Not especially favourably from a punting point of view by me, I'm afraid, though there have been some high spots!
In terms of the equine talent, the wins of Henrythnavigator in the St James's Palace Stakes, Duke of Marmalade in the Prince of Wales's Stakes and Yeats in the Ascot Gold Cup stand out for me. Remarkably, that trio were all trained by Aidan O'Brien, and the Ballydoyle maestro also turned out Haradasun to win the Queen Anne Stakes, Macarthur to win the Hardwicke Stakes and Honolulu to win the Queen Alexandra Stakes. We also saw a couple of possible star juveniles in the shape of Art Connoisseur (Coventry Stakes) and Cuis Ghaire (Albany Stakes).

There was also a very rare win at the top level for Spain with Equiano in the King's Stand Stakes. I'm hoping they can also do the business in Euro 2008.

There were plenty of talking points, and not all of them centred on what colour outfit the Queen would wear or the venomous observations of the BBC's fashion expert. The Betfair Forum was at its liveliest throughout the five days. In particular, the preparation of a race track for a major event like this came under great scrutiny. Should Clerk of The Course Chris Stickels have watered? How firm was the ground? Was there a draw (or should that be "track") bias?

My view is that Ascot handled things pretty well. The promised rain did not arrive (and then not much of it) until Friday night and yet watering was sensibly kept to a minimum. We ended up with quite fast ground, but nothing that was unreasonable. The supposed draw bias had a lot to do with the sheep-like behaviour of the jockeys in some of the races and the fact that those drawn in the centre of big fields on the straight course had further to travel to join the main group, be it stand side or far side. Stickels deserves credit for sticking to his guns in the face of a lot of criticism, much of which proved to have been unfounded.

I bet he thinks it was a long week: I know I do!