Royal Ascot: Kevin Blake reflects on box office battles, Aidan O'Brien dominance and draw bias debate

Kevin Blake reflects on a magnificent five days of Royal Ascot, nominating his highlights and covering some of the week’s big talking points.

Royal Ascot is simply in a class of its own. I have yet to experience a race meeting that offers a more complete package of excellence in every category. As mad as such a brutally-competitive racing environment can drive those that get involved as participants, punters or in any other capacity, nothing comes close to rivalling the experience it delivers and I am already looking forward to returning in 2027.

On the racing front, Royal Ascot consistently delivered box office finishes at the highest level of the sport from start to finish. Day one is always an assault on the senses and the meeting started with a spectacular reminder that anything is possible in this great game with the Ed Walker-trained Ten Bob Tony overcoming odds of 50/1 to win the Queen Anne Stakes under an excellent ride from Kieran Shoemark.

• WATCH: Royal Ascot replays
• Almeraq bounces back to win Royal Ascot sprint spectacular

The St James's Palace Stakes produced what was, for me, the race of the week, featuring the rematch between the George Boughey-trained Bow Echo and the Aidan O'Brien-trained Gstaad. It was a race that was complete mayhem from the first strides, with most riders in the race finding themselves in early positions and scenarios that they almost certainly wouldn't have envisaged pre-race. It is such situations that can bring out the best and worst in jockeys, but most adjusted on the fly to allow their mounts to have a fair shot at success.

As it transpired, the big two overcame far-from-ideal passages to engage in an almighty battle that saw Bow Echo hold on by a short-head under Billy Loughnane. In a perfect world, it really would be great to see these two clash again later in the season, but whether that happens remains to be seen.

Gstaad strides and has a racing character that suggests a mile-and-a-quarter will suit him, whereas Bow Echo shapes as though an even sharper mile such as in the Sussex Stakes will suit him. We'll see what way the cards fall, but this really was a St James's Palace Stakes for the ages on multiple fronts.

The stewards were busy after the race with Ryan Moore being given a three-day ban for careless riding on Gstaad in what was a very messy opening furlong of the race and Christophe Soumillon on Puerto Rico being given an eight-day ban for "riding his mount in such a way that intended to give an advantage to another horse from the same stable."

Whether the Soumillon ban will stand up to the appeal process remains to be seen. I am unaware of any rule that obliges a jockey to stay hard against the rail or bars them from looking around in a race. While it goes without saying that it is easy to interpret Soumillon's actions as team tactics in this case, I don't expect it to be difficult for Soumillon's legal team to challenge such interpretations. The appeal is sure to make for fascinating arguments.

The Prince Of Wales's Stakes produced a real humdinger of a contest. On paper it looked set to be run at a searching pace with both Aidan O'Brien and the Gosdens running pacemakers, and that is what was duly produced. Ombudsman had thrived in such a scenario when winning the 2025 renewal and he once again relished the test.

He didn't have any traffic trouble to overcome this year and having been given a wonderfully patient ride by William Buick, he put Minnie Hauk and Daryz to the sword in a style that left no room for doubts. Perhaps Minnie Hauk and Daryz will both be seen to better effect back over 12f, but this day was for Ombudsman, for whom this represented a career-best effort. Given that he went into the race with an official rating of 128, we are clearly dealing with one of the very best horses in the world.

Though, for pure sporting drama, the highlight of the week for many will have been the Gold Cup. Despite Trawlerman's difficult preparation and the much-publicised issues with his eyes, he made a magnificently game bid to defend his title in the race that looked likely to succeed for much of the straight. However, Scandinavia, half Trawlerman's age, just would not be turned away and excelled within the red zone to seize the lead in the final strides under a magnificent Ryan Moore ride.

Personally, I have never heard a crowd noise at Royal Ascot to rival the volume of encouragement and excitement that was generated by the finish of this race. It really was a most tremendous advert for everything we have been doing with this breed and sport for the last 300 years. Two top-class thoroughbreds giving their absolute all over an extreme distance on one of the great sporting stages in the world. Utterly magnificent!

I could continue to write about so many more races that were a pleasure to witness during the week, but in the interest of word counts I'll leave the races at that and will broaden out to individual performances by participants.

Among the trainers, Aidan O'Brien again made the outstanding look routine. He equalled his personal record of seven winners that he had secured in 2016. The number of races at the meeting has increased since then, but with O'Brien rarely having runners in the races that have been added, the achievement stands up well to historical scrutiny.

Any number of performances could be highlighted, but purely in terms of a training performance, turning Illinois around from being all-but pulled up in the Coronation Cup two weeks earlier to win a gruelling renewal of the Queen Alexandra Stakes was quite something. If he had been around in the time of Lazarus, one suspects Aidan would have found a way to resurrect him in less than four days!

As well as being crowned leading trainer, Aidan O'Brien was also the leading sire of trainers at the meeting, with Joseph O'Brien finishing the week with five winners. It was the first time since Mark Johnston did it in 2003 that a trainer other than Aidan O'Brien or John Gosden had five winners at the meeting. Just as notable as the five winners is that of the 32 runners he had at the meeting, 16 of them finished in the first four. Given that the starting prices of his runners gave him an expected winners figure of 2.13 for the meeting, to secure five winners that ranged from a two-year-old over six furlongs to a two-and-a-half mile handicap in the most competitive race meeting on the planet is a feat that speaks for itself.

Away from the top end of the table, William Haggas and George Boughey had excellent weeks, but the star performer in my book was Fozzy Stack. Two runners at Royal Ascot, two Stakes winners at Royal Ascot. For a trainer that has been tending to have around 40 individual runners a year, it is a borderline implausible feat to have two winners at such a meeting, never mind doing it with the only two bullets fired. Nola Soul and Thesecretadversary both have the potential to be Group 1 performers, but what they achieved at Royal Ascot this week won't be forgotten.

Finally, not for the first time I felt the focus on perceived track bias on the straight track at Ascot was overdone. We've been here so many times before. Small samples of evidence tend to drive jockey behaviour which leads to a perceived track bias becoming self-fulfilling, only for those conclusions to be proven to have been at least partially hasty when quality and pace is given a chance to unfold in the seemingly disadvantaged parts of the track.

By the time Saturday had come, for many the view that low draws had no chance seemed to be indisputable, yet most of the action on the straight track on the day was far side to middle with the supposedly hugely-favoured near side being widely shunned. It is a very human tendency to reach for excuses and patterns when the desired result isn't achieved and pointing the finger at the track can be convenient for participants and punters alike. That is unlikely to change any time soon.

(c) Sky Sports 2026: Royal Ascot: Kevin Blake reflects on box office battles, Aidan O'Brien dominance and draw bias debate