Hototo cruises to victory in Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot
Hototo continued his good run and sealed an emphatic win in the Windsor Castle Stakes (Listed Race), held at Royal Ascot on Tuesday, June 19th. The 2-year-old was mighty impressive right through the class 1 meeting, giving Kevin Ryan and Phillip
Makin their second juvenile victory in two years.
Under Phillip Makin, the novice broke quite brilliantly. Despite the fact that he could not establish his supremacy in the middle hours, an excellent work in the final furlong helped him put his rivals under tremendous pressure.
Alhebayeb came hard at him, but he handled things quite nicely in the 100 yards to retain his advantage. An outstanding effort helped him notch up the top position by ½ a length.
Richard Hannon’s charge also performed superbly after taking a steady start. Although he failed to trouble the winner, his terrific work in the final furlong was good enough to earn him the runner-up place by half a length.
It was a very close contest, as the top five runners crossed the wire almost simultaneously. Dylanbaru managed to end up among the top-3 by a neck’s distance. Bungle Inthejungle was fourth in the list, where the fifth spot went to Parliament Square, who
missed the fourth place just by a short head’s distance.
In such a tough contest, Hototo kept his nerves calm and made not even a single mistake. It was his second consecutive victory, as he crushed his rivals at Ayr last month, winning the British Stallion Studs Supporting British Racing E B F Maiden Stakes.
Enormously delighted over his sprinter’s nice act, Ryan said: “He only just won at Ayr the last day from a horse of Mick's (Channon), but I know he thinks a bit of that (Jillnextdoor). He could have got beat on the day, but he did well to race so keen and
still win.”
"When you come here you are going to get the pace. They went a good gallop and he was in a lovely rhythm. Phil always had something to aim at and he's a tough, hardy horse. When they went down to the two and he was still there, I knew we had a big chance,"
he added.
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