Same winner, same second but different jockey – and different horse too, if those closest to top-notch sprinter Blue Point are to be believed.
Yet teamwork was the key to this back-to-back King’s Stand Stakes triumph. The team behind the scenes at Godolphin doing their thing to get the best out of a blisteringly quick horse for whom things had not gone so well after success here in 2018.
And the teamwork of the weighing room, with William Buick looking on from the sidelines as his friend James Doyle guided the speedy five-year-old to another defeat of Battaash – though Mabs Cross was just pipped for third by Soldier’s Call to prevent a total repeat of last year’s result.
Watch Blue Point and Battaash’s epic tussle
Buick is out of action with post head-injury syndrome sustained after falling from a horse on the way to the start here last month. He was one of the first to congratulate his stand-in and admitted: “Of course you want to be doing your job. I’m not but the team are doing very well, which is the most important thing.
“You want everything to go right and James gave him a beautiful ride, very uncomplicated – he let the horse run his race and he did the same as last year. When he hit the rising ground he saw off Battaash.”
Doyle had not ridden Blue Point since he finished fourth in the Sprint Cup at Haydock in 2017 and said: “It must be very difficult for William to be here watching these good horses perform so well but I guess it would soften the blow that he knows that his best mate is riding them.
“He was one of the first over to me, giving me a hug. He’ll be back soon and that’s the main thing.”
Blue Point has very much been back this year and was making it four out of four in 2019 after three wins in Dubai.
“For the last couple of years we’ve had to try to bottle his energy and make sure he produced it at the right time but during the winter he was mentally and physically maturing,” said trainer Charlie Appleby. “The team at home have done a fantastic job looking after this horse.
“He’s strengthened up and when William got off him after his first start in Dubai he said this was a different animal we were dealing with – he’s the finished article.
“I’m so blessed to have a great team around me. It’s a great team effort to get him here in such good condition.”
Not even Godolphin can change the weather and steady rain on the day had raised a slight worry.
“I was a bit concerned about the ground but it can rain as much as it likes now!” Appleby said. “Like any good athlete, we don’t want him to slog around in slower conditions but I felt he was in the condition of his life.”
Winning owner Sheikh Mohammed said: “That has given me a lot of pleasure. When you win a Group One, you are very happy. Blue Point was in Dubai during the winter and the weather there helped him. He came here a stronger horse.
Battaash will bid for a repeat victory in the King George Stakes at Goodwood, with Charlie Hills reckoning he was outstayed by the winner over this stiff 5f.
But Houtzen had a luckless experience, travelling all the way from Australia only to stumble at the start. Kerrin McEvoy did well to stay on board and his mount’s final finishing position of eighth – having recovered quickly and shown plenty of pace – hinted at what might have been.
He said it was down to them. They said it was down to him.
Given there were more of them, and considering Aidan O’Brien is an unassuming genius, they were almost certainly the ones telling the truth, and happily so, after Circus Maximus won them all the St James’s Palace Stakes.
It was not necessarily a shock victory, for when Ryan Moore rides a Ballydoyle-based son of Galileo in a Royal Ascot Group 1, there is always a fair chance that among those celebrating in the winner’s enclosure will be John Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith. On this occasion they celebrated in the rain and heaped praise on their sensational trainer.
That trainer already held the record for St James’s Palace wins but his haul has now increased from seven to eight. Yet this time last week nobody could have predicted he would win it with Circus Maximus, a colt wearing first-time blinkers who had last been seen finishing a five-and-a-quarter-length sixth in the Derby under Frankie Dettori.
That he was next seen defeating John Gosden-trained stable companions King Of Comedy and Too Darn Hot in Royal Ascot’s opening day highlight was not something that could be easily predicted. Sometimes, however, things happen. What happened in this instance is Coolmore’s 2,000 Guineas winner Magna Grecia was ruled out of Ascot, following which O’Brien came up with the idea Circus Maximus should be ruled in. He has an inordinately large number of good ideas. This was one of them.
Watch the replay of Circus Maximus’s win
To get him into the race ‘the lads’ had to approve a £45,000 supplementary entry, as did Maria Niarchos, in whose famous family colours Circus Maximus struck for home two furlongs out and first fought off Too Darn Hot at the furlong pole before withstanding King Of Comedy’s flying late lunge. Irish 2,000 Guineas victor Phoenix Of Spain could manage only sixth.
So, who had the moment of inspiration?
“Maria and Derrick and John and Michael all decided between themselves and let us know,” said O’Brien. “We then ran with it. That’s exactly what happened. It’s hard to believe but we’re privileged to be a small part of it.”
Tabor let it be known O’Brien was a big part of it.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “Only Aidan can produce them like that. I’ve learned not to argue with him. He is just right so many times. It’s incredible, it really is. He’s a fantastic trainer.
“In life the proof of the pudding is in the eating. There are good talkers but it’s the good doers that count.”
So, it was Aidan, then?
“That was Aidan’s suggestion, yeah,” said Magnier, to whom it was suggested O’Brien was therefore being exceptionally modest.
“Well, he’s always like that, isn’t he,” added Magnier, whose next sentence seemingly applied to both horse and trainer. “Nothing surprises me,” he said. “He wasn’t far behind Phoenix Of Spain in the Group 1 as a two-year-old. Put a pair of blinkers on him, add a bit of luck and you get a different result. That’s the game. We didn’t spend the £45,000 for nothing. He had a shot.”
“No, no, they decided,” he said, but with a smile and twinkle that revealed plenty. He also revealed the winner had long been held in high regard.
“Frankie loved him at Epsom but said the track wasn’t for him, which is why he came back to a mile,” said O’Brien.
“We put the blinkers on him as we wanted to sharpen him a bit. He needed to be very focused but didn’t have much time to learn. What we asked him to do was unfair really. He produced, though, and Ryan gave him a great ride.”
The horse given that ride will now likely be campaigned between a mile and a mile and a quarter. For Too Darn Hot, even a mile on Ascot’s rain-softened ground was too much.
“He came there to win and I hit the front but in the last 100 yards he didn’t have the legs for it,” reflected Dettori, while King Of Comedy’s rider Adam Kirby, who directed his mount wide to challenge, said: “I pulled out to have a run at them, so it was uncomplicated. Had I stayed on the fence it probably would have opened up but hindsight is a marvellous thing.”
Even Aidan O’Brien lacks the powers of hindsight. His foresight, on the other hand, is utterly remarkable.
