In the depths of our Aussie winter nights there is nothing better than tuning in to all the pomp and glory of Royal Ascot and as we have passed the halfway mark it's time to look towards Saturday night and the iconic sprint that has been won four times previously by an Aussie bred horse.
There it lies on the other side of the world, that fabled racecourse and it's undulating wide ribbon of green upon which great horses run.
We watch people dressed to the nines, swilling champagne and gambolling around in the balmy English sunshine, wearing silly hats and thoroughly enjoying themselves.
We look on as the King and Queen and their most Honourable guests proceed majestically along the emerald turf before the iconic Ascot grandstand, ensconced in their fairytale carriages drawn by the famous Windsor greys.
It's pompous and completely over the top of course, and we know that the only acceptable Aussie version of such public pageantry is pretty much restricted to blokes on utes circulating the MCG.
And yet we love to watch the spectacle each year in all its glittering splendour.
Royal Ascot is truly the Festival of the Horse!
Even before we get to celebrating the exquisite Thoroughbreds and their deeds on the track, it's a chance to admire the Royal equines at work.
We can recognise each of those noble Windsor greys as old friends - they're old hands at this celebrity gig. You can tell they enjoy their Ascot outing, festooned to the eyeballs in gleaming hardware as they proceed - proud, jingling and imperturbable - before the huge boisterous crowds.
We are warmed by the sight of so many good-humoured people. Everyone is smiling and happy and waving. Excitement and expectation fill the air and the woes of the world and the cold of winter can for a little while at least, be forgotten.
As always it's over too quickly!
And on the last day we come to the race named in honour of and forever associated with the late Queen Elizabeth II.
First established back in 1868, the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth11 Jubilee Stakes is the feature on the final day of Royal Ascot.
Originally a G3 race but upgraded to a G 2 in 1998 and then upgraded again in 2002 to a G1, the WFA event has become one of the world's most prestigious sprint races.
In 2023 the race was given its present title, to honour the memory of the Queen and retain the connection with her three jubilees celebrated since 2002 and it became part of the Global Sprint Challenge series inaugurated in 2005.
It's the race first targeted by Aussie raiders, playing to our strengths.
The hulking chestnut form of the mighty Choisir started it all as he barrelled down the straight to glory in 2003.
Following him came his son Starspangledbanner in 2010 and then in 2012 our Queen, the queen of the Australian turf, Black Caviar.
The nation's fingernails were collectively bitten off as we watched the great mare, well below her best, pulling out an extreme effort to win against the odds.
On the face of it it was her least impressive win but in reality it was her best and bravest. Who will ever forget the sight of Moods introducing our Thoroughbred queen to the real thing?
Merchant Navy was the last Aussie to fly the flag in 2018.
Past winners Blue Point and Hello Youmzain both now shuttle to the Southern Hemisphere and buyers of their yearlings will no doubt have cherished dreams of becoming the next Aussies to win this great race.
This year Storm Boy is attempting to do us proud off the back of a disappointing first up appearance and although loathe to leave him out of my picks,but I am.
He's a top class horse with a lovely pedigree in the right stable with the right jockey and I think he'll improve for sure.
I'm just not convinced he is the right horse for this race - but I'll be pretty happy if I am proven wrong!
The testing Ascot course demands a horse with great reserves of courage and that inner well of stamina all the great sprinters possess.
As the surface is already good to firm and the weather forecast remains warm and dry I'm looking for horses that really prefer fast ground - ideally the Ascot version of “fast” as it does seem to be a course that horses either love or hate!
Original first pick Kind Of Blue will not be lining up in the field.
Top Tip : INISHERIN
Kind of Blue was my original top pick, but he will not be lining up, so I'm staying with the Kind Of Blue form as he was this was the horse that beat Inisherin home in the G1 Commonwealth Cup.
A four year old son of the great Shamardal - Inisherin is out of a Teofilo mare.
His trainer says the horse was over the top after a long first preparation when he didn't run up to expectations after his success at the Royal Ascot meeting last year and also needed a wind op, from which he has now seemingly bounced back to top form.
Inisherin ran well in the Guineas of his year, he's got the right mix of speed and stamina to run a strong race on the testing Ascot course at this level, he has done it before and it makes sense that with his breeding he is at his best early in a preparation.
Inisherin is bred 5m x 5m,5m to Northern Dancer and x5m,5m to Blue Hen Fairy Bridge through her sons the full brothers Fairy King and Sadler's Wells.
His pedigree incorporates the famed Shamardal / Danehill nick, the just-as-good Shamardal / Sadler's Wells nick, and Mr Prospector x Darshaan
( Shamardal’s G1 winners Pinatubo and Earthlight are out of mares carrying Darshaan).
This pedigree also creates multiple sex balanced lines to the Blue Hen Lalun through her sons Never Bend by Nasrullah and Bold Reason by Hail To Reason.
Inisherin's second damsire Mark Of Esteem was a Royal Ascot winning miler and successful sire - an influence for both stamina and speed, one of his best was the Champion European Sprinter Reverence.
We know Teofilo in Australia primarily as a “Cups King” but he is far from a one-dimensional stallion and versatility is his hallmark, eg: his grandson Havana Grey is a sire of specialist sprinters.
Inisherin's dam Ajman Princess is bred on the same Teofilo / Mark Of Esteem cross as the mighty Exultant, 5 x G1 winner in Hong Kong, and other G1 winners by the great sire.
Bred and owned by Darley she herself was one of Teofilo's very best female performers, a Royal Ascot placegetter who trained on to become a G1 winner and the Champion Older Female of France.
Inisherin is one of her two foals thus far to race, the other is his younger half brother King Of Cities by Dubawi, a stakes winner at 7f from five starts.
Ajman Princess was out of Mark Of Esteem's daughter Reem Three, an incredible producer who has earned Blue Hen status.
Amongst her ten winners, all her foals to race - G1 Royal Ascot winner Triple Time to Frankel, now at stud; French G2 winning sprinter-miler Ostilio ( New Approach); Cape Byron by Shamardal - a G3 Royal Ascot winner, tough stakes winning stayer Third Realm (Sea The Stars) and fast colt Captain Winters (Lope De Vega) twice a black type earner over 7f.
This is the elite female line of champion Rosallion by Shamardal's Blue Point, unlucky to just miss out on another G1 in the opening race of this year's Royal Ascot carnival, denied by our very own Mark Zahra on OTI's Docklands.
The family is hot and as you'd expect this is a regal female line going back to Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum's purchase of the Mill Reef daughter Donya, who was out of the dual French G1 winner Dunette.
Inisherin will want to be winding up off a strong pace which will undoubtedly be the scenario here.
With champion hoop William Buick to ride, Inisherin looks primed to run an extremely bold race for trainer Kevin Ryan. That depth of class and quality in his pedigree should be shining through when the whips are cracking!
Next Best: FLORA OF BERMUDA
Beware the Dark Angels on a firm deck at Royal Ascot. How many times have we seen them pop up at decent odds.
This girl has the form around the horses I came up with as the best chances - now-absent Kind Of Blue, Inisherin, and also around the favourite Lazzat.
I think she can run a mighty race at good odds and is the value in the race, plus she gets J-Mac to ride which can only help her cause!
The beautiful looking four year old mare was snapped up by Wathnam Racing (Emir Of Qatar) - who also own and race Kind Of Blue- just prior to Royal Ascot.
She is G1 placed to Kind Of Blue though yet to win her maiden G1 but she is undoubtedly right up to winning at this level and was only beaten a neck by Inisherin first up in the G2 Duke Of York Stakes.
The Dark Angels are famously brave and tough, and they improve with age too.
Flora Of Bermuda is out of Dubai Power by the specialist sprinter, champion sire and broodmare sire Cadeaux Genereux the best tail male source of legendary speedster Tudor Minstrel.
He is the damsire of boom stallion Harry Angel who we know well in Australia - thus Flora is bred on the same cross as Harry.
This is a filly favouring family - Flora’s dam the winning Dubai Power also dam of stakes placed Power Of Light who foaled G1 placed G2 winning filly Powerful Breeze to Iffraaj.
Third dam is the flying G3 winning sprinter Flowing by El Gran Senor, the full brother to Try My Best - tail male line of Dark Angel.
Andrew Balding trains this exciting young mare who is all heart and with a bit of J-Mac magic should make her presence felt.
Roughie: JASOUR
Jasour is on the comeback trail and backs up third up into this after quite a good showing in the King Charles III. The striking grey son of Teofilo's grandson and specialist speed sire Havana Grey was third in the G1 Commonwealth Cup here to Inisherin.
Prior to that he claimed his first stakes win, at his third start, in the G2 July Stakes defeating Lake Forest (who ran creditably in the opening G1 of this carnival at the mile and had previously beaten Jubilee favourite Lazzat on protest in Australia in the 1500m $10m Golden Eagle at Rosehill).
Now a four year old the Clive Cox trained Jasour is coming back from wind surgery and a 258 day spell so little wonder he's taken a couple of runs to get going. He's a get back and run on type of horse and if he improves again off the back up, has the ability to unleash a brilliant turn of foot on his day.
His sire Havana Grey was only tried once at 6f at two years when runner up in the G1 Prix Morny at Deauville. He has been an excellent sire of 15 stakes winners to date, and gets horses better than himself.
With 11 Group winners from his first two crops this is a young sire making his mark.
Havana Grey is out of the Dark Angel daughter Blanc De Chine.
He is bred 4m x 3f to Green Desert and descends from the American Blue Hen Chain Store, by Star Kingdom's grandson Nodouble.
Chain Store was dam of champion filly Al Bahathri (G1 Irish One Thousand Guineas, 2nd in the G1 GB One Thousand Guineas) and Haafhd (dual G1 Classic winner, sire) and multiple stakes winners Munir and Hasbah. It's the immediate family of Hong Kong champion Military Attack and Royal Ascot placed sprinter Almaty, and has a real Australian connection being also the family of the much-loved Melbourne Cup warhorse Red Cadeaux and top class Aussie WFA performer. Deny Knowledge.
It's the family of recently retired champion City Of Troy and a host of other G1 performers.
Jasour is out of Twilight Thyme a half sister to brilliant sprinters Twilight Son (won this race),Music Master ( twice fourth in this race!) and Run To Freedom (already G1 placed at Ascot and lining up with his close relative Jasour here today!)
It is some achievement for the family to have two runners in this calibre of field.
Twilight Thyme's sire Bahamian Bounty was a dual 2YO G1 winner and son of Cadeaux Genereux, the prime tail male source of the legendary speed sire Tudor Minstrel and a valued broodmare sire.
The tail female line of Jasour is that of the great matriarch Selene.
Along with his sire's two lines to Green Desert by Danzig, Jasour further carries his sons Danehill and Roi Danzig ( bred on the same Sir Ivor cross as Green Desert) in the fifth and fourth removes.
Were this horse to recapture his best form he could run a mighty race here even if the formline doesn't look exciting. He showed a glimpse of it on Tuesday.
Blowout: NIGHTEYES
Moving away from the big guns but this young Irish-bred mare at 100/1 looks over the odds!
Last start when second up she was third to Frost At Dawn who just missed by a whisker winning the King Charles a couple of days ago.
Her sire Night Of Thunder is absolutely on fire this year and just yesterday his son Ombudsman won the G1 Prince Of Wales Stakes Stakes.
Nighteyes is a young mare with a pedigree that is interesting and very appealing
Night Of Thunder by Dubawi is a wonderful sire of race fillies which isn't surprising given his superb quality female line and he was a Royal Ascot hero himself.
Nighteye's dam the stakes winning Penny Pepper is bred X 2 to Gay Mecene through daughters of that excellent sire, a son of the great champion Vaguely Noble who was a grandson of Blue Hen Belle Sauvage.
Galileo's second dam Allegretta was sired by Lombard who was also a grandson of Belle Sauvage - what a great linebreeding subject with double the power in this particular pedigree.
Gay Mecene is damsire of Anabaa, Vaguely Noble is damsire of Oratorio (IRE), Belle Sauvage is ancestress of Toronado - all extremely versatile sires and renowned for their ability to get a fast female!
Nighteyes herself is additionally bred 5m X 5m to Blue Hen Slightly Dangerous - by one of the greatest of all broodmare sires in Roberto - through her sons Warning and Deploy, the damsire of Dubawi.
Nighteye's damsire the well named Fast Company was by Danehill Dancer out of a Zafonic mare and was extremely quick. He is closely related to our own Charge Forward, also a great sprinter and a top broodmare sire.
Aside from the biggest names at Royal Ascot I'm not too familiar with trainers - however Nighteye's conditioner, Yorkshire based David O'Meara. is a G1 trainer and he has tasted success at Royal Ascot on numerous occasions.
I'm sure he knows what sort of equine talent it takes to tackle a race of this calibre and wouldn't have the mare lining up here when he could have placed her in a far easier race over the carnival.
I think Nighteyes will be loving the firm ground and is a genuine chance of far outperforming her price and after all, longshots at crazy odds regularly getting into the frame is part of the charm of Royal Ascot!
