Royal Ascot 2011 - Namibian wins Queen’s Vase under Silvestre De Sousa, Mark Johnston wins 6
The second last race of the Royal Ascot 2011 Day Four was the Queen’s Vase. Established in 1838, it is a Group 3 flat race for 3-year old thoroughbreds, run over a distance of two miles.
This year’s field comprised of twelve horses including 7/2 favourite Namibian, 9/2 Regent Street, 9/2 Solar Sky, 6/1 Eternal Heart as well as Halifax, Ittirad, Hawaafez, Qushchi, End Or Beginning, Borug, L'hermitage, and, Caravan Rolls On.
The race took off at 5:00 pm (GMT) with Eternal Heart and Halifax as the early pace-setters, followed closely by Ittirad. Regent Street then took the lead but with six furlongs left, Eternal Heart took the lead while Mark Johnston’s Namibian was just getting
into action.
With two and a half furlongs left, Eternal Heart was still leading when Namibian’s pace quickened and he crossed Eternal Heart and moved towards the far rail, getting two lengths ahead. Ridden by T P Queally Solar Sky tried to catch up with Namibian but
he resisted.
Namibian under Silvestre De Sousa won the Queen’s Vase by a necks length in a time of 3 minutes 40.97 seconds. Solar Sky finished second while Eternal Heart and Regent Street finished third and fourth respectively.
There was some interference in the final furlong, which invoked a steward’s inquiry but the results remained unaltered with Namibian placing first.
However, Solar Sky’s jockey, Silvestre de Sousa, was given a three day ban for interfering with Solar Sky but he said the ban was worth the win. He said he was happy to have been aboard his first Royal Ascot winner.
This is trainer, Mark Johnston’s, sixth Queen’s Vase of the decade. Three of Johnston’s horses were in the race about which he said:
"It was very hard to know (which ones would stay) going into the race, so I threw a lot of eggs into this basket”.
The proud trainer went on to say about Namibian:
“He's got lots of options, and you'd say that the St Leger was one of them, but we'll keep an open mind".
Solar Sky’s trainer, Sir Henry Cecil, said about the horse although it won have been great to win he was still appreciative of the fact that Solar Sky ran a good race and is improving. Had Solar Sky won this race it would have been Henry Cecil’s ninth Queen’s
Vase victory.
It was a very good day for Johnston given that three of the first four horses were his pupils and that he broke his own record of five Queen’s Stakes in a decade by winning a sixth one. This speaks volumes of this trainer’s talent and maybe sometimes luck
too.
The same can be said for winner Namibian's talent as, he has stood either first, second, or, third, in five of the races he has run so far. Here's hoping this competitive duo continues to give such brilliant performances.
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