royal ascot
Royal Ascot 2021 provided success for a broad range of sires and broodmare sires, but one mare rose above all others, writes Aisling Crowe
Pier-less Rafha’s sons and grandsons
Prince Faisal’s diminutive Prix de Diane heroine Rafha was the matriarch who reigned over the 2021 Royal meeting – 13 races across the five days featured her name in the pedigrees of at least one of the first three home. At Group 1 level she appears in the pedigrees of the winners of three of the meeting’s eight top level races through her stallion sons Invincible Spirit and Kodiac.
20
www.internationalthoroughbred.net
Invincible Spirit had a head-start over his half-brother Kodiac in establishing a sire line, which he has successfully achieved in both hemispheres. His Group 1-winning son Kingman is one of the best young stallions in Europe and the Juddmonte sire has the top-class miler Palace Pier from his second crop. Palace Pier gave the newly-formed father and son training team of John and Thady Gosden their first Royal Ascot winner in the
first race of the meeting – the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes. It was at the 2020 Royal meeting when Palace Pier announced himself as a miler of distinction with his first Group 1 win in the St James’s Palace Stakes and his victory on Tuesday was his fourth Group 1 success in the silver silks of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed al Maktoum. Post-race jockey Frankie Dettori reported that he believed his mount is “one of the best
