The dust has settled on Royal Ascot, so now’s time for the alternative review of Royal Ascot. The official reviews have already been nicely rounded off by the trade publications, but this retrospective is different to one that you’ll see elsewhere. Here we set performance purely in the context of the numbers.
Who bought the winners?
There were 35 individual winners across the week.
11 of the winners were homebreds.
An interesting one for the family tree is American Affair, trained by Jim Goldie. This is the third generation of this family Goldie has overseen. He purchased Orientor as a yearling for 12,000 guineas and also trained Class Wan and Classy Anne—the dam and granddam of American Affair. (Still couldn’t beat Swinging Eddie at Ayr on his birthday though)
7 of the winners had a connection with Blandford Bloodstock. Either through yearling purchases or via the connection with Wathnan Racing. Docklands and Never So Brave being purchased as yearlings, with the others private purchases on behalf of Wathnan.
3 winners had links to StroudColeman Bloodstock; Ombudsman, My Cloud, Adriesta.
With Peter & Ross Doyle having links to two;
Here’s the full list of Royal Ascot winners and their purchasers and sales history;
Jockeys
Ryan Moore was undoubtedly the jockey of the meeting, riding 7 individual winners.
We compile individual metrics on all jockeys and also “uplift metrics” to also see how much uplift jockeys add for the trainers that they ride for. Here Moore also does well, but that’s also a large factor to being given the best Ballydoyle horses to ride. Here’s how Ryan Moore’s record at Royal Ascot compares to an “average jockey” over the years. He sets the standard.
The radar compares Ryan Moore to the average jockey at Royal Ascot since 2008. Showing raw jockey performance metrics normalised against the population and also adjusted “trainer uplift” metrics when normalised against the rest of the jockey population. Summary: pure power.
Oisin Murphy had another fine Royal Ascot, riding 5 individual winners. His longstanding association with Andrew Balding paying off, as they delivered 3 individual winners together. What’s very impressive about Murphy’s ongoing Ascot record is that he isn’t really afforded the same patronage of a huge racing operation like a Coolmore, Godolphin or a Wathnan but provides a significant upside on his rides.
James Doyle had a very successful week riding for Wathnan Racing, netting 4 individual winners overall. His radar also shows a significant uplift and strength over and above the general jockey population. Finally the lead jockey gig for Wathnan is giving Doyle the platform to showcase his undoubted talents.
How did our ratings do at finding prospects for Royal Ascot?
We were pretty happy overall at how our ratings performed at identifying talents for Royal Ascot. We were not involved in the purchase of any of these, but the main thing for me is that our numbers were highlighting horses going in the right direction.
Here’s how our ratings worked out across the 2yo winners, when we rated them as yearlings in 2024.
Venetian Sun (Starman x Johara), purchased by Todd Investments (Tony Bloom & Patrick Veitch) and winner of the Albany. She was a 86.45/100 [A] rated filly for us on biomechanics at Tatts Book 1. She was the 11th highest rated filly we had in the sale.
Havana Hurricane - we totally failed here. Rated 35.65 / 100 [C] at the Tatts Somerville Sale. Mark this one up as a miss on our side.
Humidity (Ulysses x Sultry), didn’t achieve reserve as a yearling at Tatts Book 2 in 2024. He was subsequently retained by Cheveley Park Stud to race, prior to being bought privately by Wathnan Racing prior to Royal Ascot. We had him rated at 89.16/100 [A] on biomechanics at the sale, our 17th highest biomechanic rating in the sale.
Gstaad was purchased as a foal and never reached a yearling sale, therefore were not rated by us.
For further information you can always find us at racingsquared@gmail.com