Unbeaten Breeders’ Cup heroine Aunt Pearl, joint-champion European 2-year-old filly Campanelle and G1-winning sprinter Extravagant Kid look set to form a formidable transatlantic challenge at Royal Ascot this year.
Entries are revealed today for 12 races across the five days, including all eight G1 highlights. In total, there are eight U.S.-trained runners with entries, plus strong representation from France, Germany and Ireland.
Royal Ascot runs from Tuesday, June 15, to Saturday, June 19, with total prize money of £6 million – a 66 percent increase on the £3.61m offered in 2020.
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For the here for the entries and here for the full order of running
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Aunt Pearl will make her seasonal return for trainer Brad Cox in the G2 Edgewood Stakes at Churchill Downs this weekend ahead of a potential tilt at the G1 Coronation Stakes on Friday, June 18.
The daughter of Lope De Vega has looked imperious in all three of her starts to date, most recently dominating from the front in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Keeneland in November.
Liz Crow, who manages the partnership of Madaket Stables, Michael Dubb, Peter Deutsch, Michael Kisber and the Elkstone Group that owns Aunt Pearl, said, “We first want to see how Aunt Pearl performs on Friday in the Edgewood. She is doing great at the moment. She has been training really well and we are excited to see her back out.
“Hopefully, she comes back and wins well, and then we will be able to move forward with the plan of running at Royal Ascot.”
Trainer Brendan Walsh has not totally ruled out the idea of allowing Extravagant Kid to contest both the G1 King’s Stand Stakes on the Tuesday of Ascot and the G1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes on the Saturday.
Australian trailblazer Choisir plundered both races in 2003, a feat repeated by Godolphin star Blue Point in 2019.
Extravagant Kid, a lightly raced 8-year-old, is in the form of his life having secured a first G1 success in the six-furlong Al Quoz Sprint at Meydan on March 27.
Walsh said, “Everything has been good with Extravagant Kid and Royal Ascot is the target if all goes well between now and then.
“It was a proper performance from the horse in Dubai. We were lucky enough to win the UAE Derby a couple of years ago and to go back and win another big race was fantastic. It is hard to describe how good it is to have horses capable of competing at these big international meetings.
Versatile sprinter
“Extravagant Kid has entries in the King’s Stand and Diamond Jubilee. Both races have their appeal and it made sense to enter for both as he is quite versatile. We will see how each race is shaping and make our minds up nearer the time. I would not write off him running in both just yet, although I would say it is unlikely.
“Although this will be my first runner at the meeting, I have been to Ascot many times. When I worked for Mark Wallace, we came very close to winning the King’s Stand with a horse called Benbaun, who was beaten in a head bob by Takeover Target. It will be lovely to get back over there, all being well.”
Campanelle provided trainer Wesley Ward with an 11th Royal Ascot success in last year’s G2 Queen Mary Stakes. The daughter of Kodiac, who subsequently defeated the boys in France’s G1 Prix Morny, is one of two entries for Ward in the G1 Commonwealth Cup on the Friday, alongside Illegal Smile.
Ward is also responsible for Bound For Nowhere, who could make his fourth appearance at Royal Ascot in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes, and Maven in the King’s Stand Stakes.
The trainer said, “Campanelle did us proud last year and the owners are really excited about bringing her back for the Commonwealth Cup. I have had my eye on this for some time as I think the stiff six furlongs on the straight course will suit her really well. We are looking to give her a prep race about a month out from Ascot, although where that will be I am not sure yet.
“Our other filly in the Commonwealth Cup, Illegal Smile, will be out next weekend in a 5-furlong race on the grass at Churchill Downs. How she gets on there will determine whether she travels.
“Bound For Nowhere made a really exciting comeback at Keeneland recently. With him, we are jostling over bringing him to Ascot again or going for a G1 sprint on Belmont Stakes day. It will be a while before we make a decision on that.
“Maven has always been a very talented horse. He travelled over to Ascot in 2019 but we pulled him out because of the soft ground. Then he won a G3 over in France but since then has had some minor issues.
“He had a problem with an undescended testicle, so we gelded him and gave him a long time off and then he fired a bullet on his comeback win at Keeneland a couple of weeks ago. I know it was just an allowance race, but his numbers were through the roof – he essentially ran the same race as Bound For Nowhere – and that told me that he warrants an Ascot entry.
“He ran so big in that effort that I am thinking about training him for Ascot rather than running again beforehand. We are really excited by this guy.”
European stars
Ward also singled out Ruthin, a daughter of the 2017 Queen Anne Stakes victor Ribchester, as his main fancy for the G2 Queen Mary Stakes on the Wednesday, a race the trainer has won four times.
Ward continued, “The filly by Ribchester, Ruthin, produced an eye-opening performance at Keeneland last week. We expected her to run well going into the race. Not all horses produce in the afternoon what they show you in the morning, but she did, and it was great to see. She is on a direct course for the Queen Mary Stakes.”
An array of European stars with entries include Stradivarius (John Gosden), who will attempt to emulate Yeats by winning the Gold Cup for the fourth successive year on the Thursday.
His stablemate Palace Pier made a pleasing return at Sandown Park last weekend and has now returned to the TRC Global Rankings at #12. Last season’s St James’s Palace Stakes hero is the headline act in the opening race of the Royal Meeting, the G1 Queen Anne Stakes over a mile.
Some of the best middle-distance performers in the world are likely to face off in the ten-furlong G1 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes on the Wednesday. The entries include last year’s winner Lord North (Gosden), who is ranked #61, dual Classic-winning filly Love (Aidan O’Brien), who is unranked currently because she has not run since last August, and globetrotter Addeybb (William Haggas), who is world #7.
Battleground (Aidan O’Brien), winner of the listed Chesham Stakes at the royal meeting in 2020, features among a host of promising colts engaged in the G1 St James’s Palace Stakes over a mile on the opening day.
All eight G1s are part of the QPICO British Champions Series. Four Royal Ascot contests are part of the Breeders’ Cup Win & You’re In Programme – the Queen Anne, the Prince of Wales’s, the Norfolk and the Diamond Jubilee.