Another Day For The Ascot Vanquished

The fallout from Royal ascot continues as with every winner invariably there are many more losers. Two strongly fancied horses that both failed to perform to their best ability were Hootenanny (Quality Road) and Telescope (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). Wesley Ward’s Breeders’ Cup winner was favorite for the G1 Commonwealth Cup but never featured and his trainer is at a loss to explain the lacklustre performance. “He scoped clean so we’re struggling to find an excuse,” said Ward. “That’s horse racing I suppose, you can’t win every day. We’ll get him home and give him a thorough check over, run a few more tests. He’s won a Breeders’ Cup so we know he’s not just an early two-year-old, we’ll give him time and figure out a plan”, added Ward. 

Telescope was also favourite to win the G2 Hardwicke S. for the second year in a row but dropped out tamely to be a well beaten sixth to stablemate Snow Sky (GB) (Nayef). Harry Herbert, racing manager to owners Highclere Thoroughbred Racing, is willing to chalk down the performance as a once off and said, “Telescope is absolutely fine. The fast ground combined with the slow tempo was not for him. He ran the worst race of his life which was incredibly disappointing but both Ryan Moore and Sir Michael Stoute have said we have just got to put a line through it.” Telescope could still be in the mix for the G1 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth S. next month or possibly the G2 Prince Of Wales’s S. at Newmarket July 9.