Even the irrepressible Frankie Dettori admitted that he needed “two or three espressos” to fire him up as Royal Ascot opened in front of empty grandstands on Tuesday, but Jim Crowley had no trouble adapting to the lack of atmosphere as he rode three of the afternoon’s seven winners, including the outstanding sprinter Battaash as he recorded a first win in the King’s Stand Stakes at his third attempt.
The unique circumstances of this year’s Royal meeting might even have contributed to Battaash’s success. Charlie Hills’s gelding has always been blessed with such an abundance of natural speed that in a point-and-go discipline like a five-furlong sprint, he should be borderline unbeatable. Yet he has often been a sweaty, anxious mess in the minutes before the off, wasting valuable energy and leaving big races behind before he has even entered the stalls.
There was no sign of any nervousness in the peaceful surroundings of Ascot on Tuesday, however, and while Battaash was pulling hard in the early stages, once Crowley had him settled on the pace at his freakishly high cruising speed, the race was as good as over. A final burst of speed a furlong out was enough to send Battaash nearly three lengths clear of Equilateral, a stable companion, at the line.
“He was beautifully relaxed before the race and as soon as the gates opened, you could see he was going to be very difficult to beat,” Hills said. “We always think his ace card from the two to the furlong pole is that he can get horses off the bridle while he is still cruising. He’s a very hard horse to beat when he’s like that.”
Battaash has now won all three of Europe’s Group One sprints over five furlongs, and will now head towards Glorious Goodwood – also behind closed doors – next month, where he has won the King George V Stakes for the past three years.
“Two years ago [before the Nunthorpe] at York he completely blew his lid before the race,” Crowley said. “I think not having the crowd here did help. He has done the three now and hopefully we’re not finished yet.”
Crowley had already taken the first race of the day, the Buckingham Palace Handicap, on Motakhayyel and completed a treble when Nazeef came with a strong late run to beat Agincourt in the Group Two Duke Of Cambridge Stakes.
Nazeef, a four-year-old, was making only the sixth start of her career having not seen a track until June 2019, and a close third on debut is still the only defeat on her record. The Group One Sussex Stakes at Goodwood next month is one possible target for John Gosden’s filly, though she would probably face a very tough opponent there in Circus Maximus, who showed the depth of his fighting qualities to win Tuesday’s Group One Queen Anne Stakes.
Terebellum and Dettori stole a precious and potentially decisive length from Circus Maximus and Ryan Moore heading into the final furlong, but as Moore urged him on, Circus Maximus responded impressively to claw back the deficit and win by a head.
“He loves getting eyeballed and toughs it out very well,” Aidan O’Brien, who has to watch the action from County Tipperary this year due to quarantine regulations, said afterwards. “Like a fighter, if you don’t get his blood up he doesn’t really bother, and he needs the pace of the mile races to get his blood up.”
Like Dettori, O’Brien has taken a little time to adapt to Ascot behind closed doors, though it certainly makes his life easier in some respects.
“For us, it’s much easier this week than any Ascot we would ever have done,” he said. “We have an incredible team and we’re in constant communication. Usually our Ascots are 20-hour days every year, so this year it’s a bit more relaxed and we can see more and hear more. We’d probably be able to take it in a lot more day-by-day this year.”
Having been touched off in the Queen Anne, Dettori made it into the winner’s enclosure after the Ribblesdale Stakes 35 minutes later aboard Frankly Darling, and performed what he felt was a “six out of 10” flying dismount despite the lack of an audience.
“There’s no crowd but it’s still Royal Ascot so I thought I’d better celebrate in style,” Dettori said. “The first race, it was hard to pick myself up. I normally walk in and I’m signing autographs and everybody’s slapping me on the back and shouting my name, and it was the opposite today. But now the adrenalin’s pumping, I had a good battle with Ryan in the second and I’m well warmed up. Of course we miss the crowd but we’re providing a good show for the people at home watching these fantastic races.”
Frankly Darling was a convincing winner and is now 7-2 second-favourite for the Oaks at Epsom on 4 July behind Love, who took the 1,000 Guineas this month, while Pyledriver, a surprise winner of the King Edward VII Stakes at 18-1, is around 16-1 for the Derby after beating a field that included O’Brien’s colt Mogul, who was as short as 11-2 for the Classic on Tuesday morning.
Mogul is now 14-1 but that is still the shortest price for any O’Brien-trained contender in the ante-post betting. Muir, meanwhile, can dream of saddling Pyledriver for the Classic in two and a half weeks’ time.
“We will have to think about it,” Muir said. “If he comes right, we’ll run him. If he doesn’t, we’ll wait.”
