The Queen’s Vase has produced some fantastic winners over the years including the likes of yesterday’s runaway Ascot Stakes winner, Stradivarious.
The race doesn’t seem to possess a horse anywhere near that calibre on current evidence but they are all lightly-raced with Born With Pride a warm order for William Haggas. She put in a scintillating performance on debut last year to beat the Irish 1000 Guineas winner, Peaceful.
But she ran a little bit flat on reappearance, albeit in a race that wasn’t run to suit, and there are question marks over her now. There’s been a few runners who haven’t quite performed this week with a run and there could be others to find more improvement over this trip.
Aidan O’Brien generally targets his horses for this race having won it seven times before. He enters Nobel Prize and SANTIAGO, with the latter preferred with Ryan Moore in the saddle.
This son of Authorised seemed to relish the soft ground when controlling his maiden on his third career start as a juvenile. He had previously finished second to Alpine Star who went on to win a Group 2 in Ireland.
This race normally goes to an unexposed, lightly raced three-year-old who finds significant improvement for the step up from middle distances and Santiago could fit the right profile for that.
1pt win Santiago @5/1, 16:10 Ascot, Friday
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