Beckett and Berry win Duke of Edinburgh Kinema came out on top in a rough finish to the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes at Royal Ascot. Providing Ralph Beckett with a first Royal Ascot winner and cementing his partnership with Fran Berry in the process, the five-year-old defied stall 19. For much of the straight, Godolphin's Elite Army looked to have the race in the bag but James Doyle's mount was treading water inside the final 100 yards. Kinema swamped him on the outside but Ryan Moore and and Kings Fete were making relentless progress. Moore went for a gap between the front two and seemed to have the momentum to go on and win, but Elite Army drifted off the rail and Kinema (8-1) edged up, meaning the gap closed. Kinema crossed the line a length and a quarter ahead of Elite Army, with a neck back to Kings Fete having been stopped sharply in his run. First Sitting was fourth. A stewards' inquiry was immediately called, but after a short, tense wait the placings remained unaltered. Speaking immediately after the race, Berry said: "My horse hung right under pressure and was quite hard to steer, but he went away in the end and the best horse won on the day, I'm sure. "Hopefully everything is OK, you're always nervous when something like that happens, but I think he was the best horse and it would be great to give Ralph his first Royal Ascot winner." Beckett has not had much luck with stewards' inquiries in the last 12 months. First Secret Gesture was disqualified and demoted to third after passing the post first in the Beverly D. Stakes at Arlington Park in America, before Simple Verse was controversially disqualified after winning the St Leger at Doncaster, only to regain victory after an appeal. Beckett said: "We lost one Grade One and one Group One last year and got one back, so this is a bit of a relief to put it mildly. "I've been training for 17 years and this is my first (Royal) Ascot winner. We got beaten about the width of a cigarette paper in the first race (Bletchley, Albany Stakes). "I'm absolutely delighted."
