IN THE LAND OF BLIND SPEED, THE ONE-EYED FILLY IS QUEEN!

OMBUDSMAN produced a scintillating performance to establish himself as one of the very best Royal Ascot winners of recent years. It should be remembered that he made his debut on the Saturday of the Royal Meeting; but as a three-year-old at Newmarket. A delayed introduction does not seem to have limited his progress in any way and it certainly hasn’t prevented the similarly late starter STARMAN producing multiple juvenile successes.  One dreads the street smart carping about OMBUDSMAN’s eventual retirement - “Well he didn’t run at two you know.”

The scaremongering and tantrums that were generated by the imposition of sire qualifications for this year’s Windsor Castle Stakes were revealed as just that. A common whine over the preceding year has been how few horses would qualify, but twenty five went to post representing eighteen different stallions. The covering fees of the sires of the first four home were €65k, €30k, €6,5k and £10k. The winner was unsold as a yearling for £110k, the third was bought as a breezer for £20k and the fourth was a €30k foal.  By any interpretation of modern bloodstock markets that is egalitarian.  We will now find out how many have a future.

Those perceptive enough to discern between class and precocity will have noticed that the Queen Mary over five furlongs was won by a filly out of a mare by a Derby winner, beating horses out of mares by another Derby winner and a Kentucky Derby winner respectively into the places.  History repeatedly exposes the folly of condemning the merit of a race because the pundits did not get the result that they expected.  VICTORIOUS is a remarkable filly as she is blind in one eye.  Aptly named and hopefully a sharp reminder that ‘In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."