It was a day to remember for the ambitious team behind Phoenix Thoroughbreds as Advertise landed the Group One Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot.
The Phoenix Ladies Syndicate also found themselves celebrating as their first European runner, Forever In Dreams, chased home Martyn Meade’s charge giving the Dubai based group the best possible result.
Held up by the in-form Frankie Dettori as the stalls pinged back, Advertise settled into a comfortable rhythm as he was dropped back to a six furlong trip. Last seen when disappointing in the 2000 Guineas the son of Showcasing looked every bit the Group One winner as he cruised up on the outside of the field. As red hot favourite Ten Furlongs came under pressure, Dettori saw his opportunity to turn the screw and Advertise lengthened into a clear lead. Forever In Dreams would be the one to give chase having been up in the vanguard throughout and while she stayed on very nicely she was unable to catch the Phoenix Thoroughbreds owned colt ,who won with a bit to spare.
“To win at Royal Ascot is better than winning any Derby in the World,” said a thrilled Phoenix Thoroughbreds CEO Amer Abdulaziz. “The whole World watches this meeting, and it’s essential for an investment fund like ours to be successful on this Global stage. Martyn has done a terrific job in getting this horse back to top form, and he and his team deserve much of the credit for this success. Also, I thought Frankie gave him the perfect ride, and we’ve enjoyed seeing him have such a great week. There are so many people to thank for this victory, we have a great team. We’ll let the dust settle before we think about where we go next.”
For Martyn Meade and his team, the result was a reward for their bravery as they decided to ease off their horses for a few weeks following severalbelow par performances for their runnerss at the start of the season. It is also the Manton based handler’s first winner at the Royal meeting.
“He was pretty special over six furlongs last year, but the problem was I had trained him to run over a mile, and getting him to switch off,” explained Meade. “So we added the blinds today to get him jazzed up and luckily it worked as he jumped and went. He’d only run one bad race in his life, and that was in the Guineas. I always had great faith in him, so I went back to basics and back to six furlongs. We know he is brilliant at that, so we thought if he can reproduce what he was doing as a two-year-old, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
And so it proved. Meade also echoed the thoughts of his owners about the future suggesting all options are open with the Prix Maurice De Gheest, the first posible target to come to mind.
For his part, Frankie Dettori, who looks set to become the leading rider at the week-long festival of racing, was quick to praise the latest horse to carry him to Group One glory.
“I was always in control and travelled like the winner.” Reflected the Italian. “When I kicked, he went, and it was brilliant. Advertise always relaxed in his races for me, and he has gone a little the other way, that is why he has got the blinkers, just to keep him focused. He was a very good two-year-old, and I’m pleased for all the connections.”
The victory is the second Royal Ascot success for the innovative investment fund following Signora Cabello’s victory in the Queen Mary last year while it’s another big race result on a global stage for the group in 2019 with Gronkowski’s second in the Dubai World Cup.