'They both played a blinder'

The spotlight falls on both Frankie Dettori and The King, and any punters who picked out winning 150/1 shot Valiant Force were richly rewarded

- MARCUS ARMYTAGE

Royal Ascot, Ascot Racecourse, Berks

IF Royal Ascot could be distilled into the performances of two people this year, it was whether the retiring Frankie Dettori could go out with a winner or achieve what looked like an optimistic three to round his 77 previous winners up to 80, and how The King, who very much took a backseat role when The late Queen was alive, would adapt to being in charge. As it turned out, they both played a blinder.

For some reason, despite Paddington putting up possibly the best equine performance of the week in the St James’s Palace Stakes and, on paper, it being the best day of racing, Tuesday felt a bit flat. Dettori rode three seconds, picked up a nine-day ban and one might have thought, “Here we go again”, after the problems the jockey encountered 12 months ago when he would have struggled to win a walkover.

But from the moment of Dettori’s Queen’s Vase win on Gregory on Wednesday, the meeting began to pick up before it exploded to life on Thursday when The King and Queen won the King George V Stakes with Desert Hero – and at odds of 18/1 I am not sure they quite saw it coming. Shortly afterwards, Dettori surprised himself by winning a ninth Gold Cup on the aptly named Courage Mon Ami.

After that the racing just flowed. Tuesday’s first winner Triple Time, the 33/1 victor of the Queen Anne, set the week’s trend for big-priced winners that also included 150/1 shot Valiant Force and Khaadem at 80/1. Finding winners was like looking for a needle in a haystack, but if you did so you were generally well rewarded.