Simon Holt Royal Ascot Preview

Simon Holt reckons Saeed Bin Suroor will add to his already glittering Royal Ascot CV with another winner courtesy of a fascinating all-weather maiden winner.

Thursday’s Britannia Handicap for three-year-olds over Royal Ascot’s straight mile is hardly the easiest race of the week to back a winner but my spies tell me that Godolphin’s Arabian Story is well fancied.

Sometimes, the key to these high end, big field cavalry charges is to find the proverbial Group horse masquerading as a handicapper and, this could be the one.

When the five-day declarations were made, Oisin Murphy had already been booked to ride Arabian Story who he rode, after two nondescript efforts in Meydan, to an all-the-way three-length victory in a maiden race at Chelmsford on May 22 (replay below).

The form is untested but the runner-up Competizione (for the Gosdens) is also a Britannia entry and the other runners were so strung out behind that Arabian Story has been given an opening mark of 97.

Significantly, there were three maiden races over the mile on the Chelmsford card and his comfortable victory was recorded in the quickest time by well over two seconds.

The son of Invincible Spirit is trained by Saeed Bin Suroor and, if he was asked about the horse, I’m sure, in that rich Arab accent, would come the usual stock reply that “he is training well.”

From what I hear, he’s been training very well indeed. Considering some immense past achievements, it is extraordinary how Bin Suroor has, for about a decade now, been cast in the shadow of Godolphin’s number one trainer, Charlie Appleby.

After all, this is the man who trained brilliant horses like Lammtarra, Halling, Swain, Cape Cross, Daylami, Sakhee, Fantastic Light, Marienbard, Dubawi and, of course, Sheikh Mohammed’s pride and joy, Dubai Millennium.

If you were asked to name the most successful trainer in the Queen Anne Stakes, the Group One race which provides such a sparkling start on Tuesday, names like Cecil, Stoute and O’Brien might come to mind.

But the answer is Bin Suroor with a remarkable seven wins and, last year, he provided Godolphin with their only success when Wild Tiger won the Hunt Cup. He won the same race with Real World in 2021 to add to five Gold Cups and four Prince Of Wales’s Stakes among many others since the mid-1990s.

In his place as the number one, Appleby has performed exceptionally well with a huge team of blue bloods though not at the last two Royal meetings, from which he has left empty handed.

Currently operating at 31% winners to runners, he will doubtless be keen – maybe even desperate – to improve on what has been an underwhelming performance since 2022 when Coroebus, Secret State, Noble Truth and Naval Crown were all successful.

The big guns are out early this year with the 2000 Guineas winner Ruling Court taking on Henri Matisse and Field Of Gold in the St James’s Palace Stakes while last year’s Guineas winner Notable Speech faces the leading milers in the Queen Anne.

Meanwhile, Bin Suroor, who runs the nine-year-old Passion And Glory in Tuesday’s Wolferton Stakes, has spoken out bravely about his frustration at not having the ammunition to repeat some of his many past achievements.

It could be that Dubai in the winter is now the priority but, among the nine horses (only) that he has run here this season, are Tornado Alert, who finished fourth to Ruling Court at Newmarket and sixth in the Derby, and the filly Elwateen, who ran fourth to Desert Flower in the 1000 Guineas before appearing a non-stayer in the Oaks.

So, he is still playing to a high standard despite a disappointing turn of events for the former policeman who did so much to prove that Godolphin was a world power in the sport of horse racing.

Hopefully, Arabian Story will show on Thursday that Bin Suroor’s story is far from over.

Simon Holt Royal Ascot Preview

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