Nothing Rogue about Owen and Davies

James Owen and Harry Davies teamed up for their maiden Royal Ascot successes as Rogue Diplomat charged up the stands rail to land the Royal Hunt Cup at 28-1.

With two furlongs to go it looked as though Davies, in company with seven of the 28 runners on the stands’ rail, had misjudged his fractions with the bulk of the field holding a significant advantage on the far side.

But with their red-hot pace starting to take effect it was near side who took over at the furlong marker and it was Rogue Diplomat who powered home to land the £90,000 first prize by a length from Blue RC. Indalo came home in front on the far side in third with Ebt’s Guard taking fourth.

“The plan was just to ride him cold – he’s always run his best races riding him steady,” said the winning jockey. “We were confident there would be a lot of pace. Whether we’d be drawn on the right side was one where we had to wait and see.

“I thought at halfway the other side was ahead of us and I was getting a little bit worried but luckily the horse that I followed took me to beyond the two, and he picked up so well.

“I pinned him to the fence to keep him honest – he could get a bit lonely, but he’s won really well and I’m delighted.”

Davies said it was a dream come true to land a first winner at the Royal meeting.

“To ride a Royal Ascot winner is definitely the highlight of my career. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I started, and it’s great to get the monkey off my back,” he said.

For trainer Owen it was also a first strike at the Royal meeting.

“We’ve been knocking on the door, and to get our first Royal Ascot winner is unbelievable,” said the jubilant trainer. “I’ve got a great team, this is what we want and we’ve got it. We’ll keep going now.”

William Haggas landed his 18th Royal Ascot winner with one-time Classic hope Alobayyah in the Kensington Palace Handicap and saddled the third and fourth for good measure.

The Newmarket handler’s well-backed 11-4 favourite came home a neck to the good of James Fanshawe’s Miss Nightfall with the winner’s stablemates 40-1 shot Seren Star and Rhapsody at 12-1 filling the other two minor places.

Afterwards Haggas admitted that it has been a long road back for the filly after she failed to justify sky high hopes as a two-year-old.

“We trained her for a Classic because we thought she was pretty good, and that was the wrong thing to do, she wasn’t ready, and she ran very free at Kempton and it set her back three months,” he said.

“We never really recovered from that. We had lots of other issues, and she’s lucky to have some patient owners.

“She ran no good last year, then this year she ran very well back here (on her seasonal reappearance) and we kept her for this, really. But we’ve had a bit of luck, because I think we were third and fourth as well, so it’s been a good race.”

Joseph O’Brien continued his red-hot form in the final event on day two, taking the Windsor Castle Stakes with King Of Cloughan (33-1) and securing a third winner of the week following Kizlyar in the Ascot Stakes and Limestone in the Queen’s Vase.

It was also a second success for Billy Loughnane who was another to come with a winning late rattle up the stands side.

“We thought we had a good squad coming here and we though they were in good shape and our horses have been running well; to see that translate into some winners this week is really special,” he said.

“I think King Of Cloughan is a six furlong horse this season and you’d hope he might end up in something like the Middle Park or something later in the year.”

Loughnane, who was following up his win on Bow Echo in the St James’s Palace Stakes, said: “A winner both days, it doesn’t get any better.”