Royal Ascot Saturday: Graham Clark on Rebel Romance's win

Without a winner at Royal Ascot since 2022 ,flat racing’s mid-summer highlight has been anything but a happy hunting ground for trainer Charlie Applebly.

And following defeat for the likes of Notable Speech in the Queen Anne Stakes, Ruling Court in the St James’s Palace Stakes and Treanmor in the Chesham Stakes it was beginning to look like another meeting to forget for Godophin’s main man.

But despite those defeats Appleby remained calm where others might have started to lose their cool because he knew his final chance of a winner rested with a horse that he is so attached to, he even has his picture on his bedside table.

Rebel’s Romance is not just another Group One winner that has rolled off the production line at Moulton Paddocks.

He is an international superstar that has amassed more than £10 million in prize money and with it a legion of fans across the globe thanks to top flight victories in America, Dubai, Europe and Hong Kong.

At the age of seven the gelded son of Dubawi should really have his best days behind him, but just like a fine wine he seems to have got better with time, with his victory here in the Hardwicke Stakes his third of the year.

And for Appleby there could be no more fitting winner to finally end a barren run at such an important meeting.

Appleby said: “He is our stable favourite and he always will be. He is the only horse I know that you can go to Hong Kong and get in any bar or restaurant put it that way! You get in anywhere on the back of Rebel’s Romance. As William (Buick) said he is his best friend as they have that great rapport out there and you couldn’t get two more willing partners together.

“I have to give a lot of credit to the team at home. To keep an older horse sound like that and to keep them going for that long, and for him to have his enthusiasm year-on-year, at this level, as they often taper, is great.

“Like us all when we get a bit older we get a bit slower, but he might get a bit slower, but his enthusiasm and heart does not falter one iota. I said to William, try and make you move a bit earlier as he is renowned that when something comes to him he finds.

“Thankfully they didn’t get close enough that he didn’t have to dig really deep, but we saw that at York. As William said you very rarely sit on a horse that when it goes into the red it still goes.

"At York in the Yorkshire Cup his tank was empty, but he still never gave up and that is credit to the horse. If there was one horse you were having to roll your last dice in a poker game it was going to be him and thankfully you had confidence, win, lose or draw that he was going to go out there and lie down on his sword for you.”

Watching others taste glory while wallowing in defeat is never a place any trainer wants to be, especially one that has one of the biggest, and most expensive strings, in training.

But despite watching the blue colours of Godolphin carried to glory from horses trained by John and Thady Gosden and Saeed bin Suroor earlier in the meeting, not once did it cause a sense of frustration for a man used to dining at the top table on a regular basis.

In fact, in his view, it was quite the opposite, with it deflecting pressure off his shoulders.

He added: “I’m not trying to say I’m trying to be ultra cool, but it is not my first rodeo here, and being beaten here. It takes the pressure off me with the likes of John and Thady, and Saeed having their winners, which are richly deserved.

“Had they not had a winner themselves and I was coming into today headlined as the Godolphin trainer with the numbers shall we say then the pressure would have been on. I know how tough it is to have horses here and that is why I applaud every winner.

“If there wasn’t pressure on me I probably wouldn’t be in the position I am now so therefore you want pressure as if there isn't you are a fair way down. Had we gone the three years without a winner here you would have probably felt it a bit more.

“Wherever you travel to get horses to a championship meeting and then try and win with them is a feat in itself, so full credit to everyone who has done it this week and I’m glad I got on board myself.”

Some like to fire anything at the meeting when realistically their chances of victory are slim. But that is not the method of Appleby, who despite going two years without a winner at the meeting until this success, is content sticking to a policy he knows will suit the horses best in the long run to fulfill the expectations required of him.

And with Newmarket’s July Festival next on the agenda, rest assured his name is likely to be more commonplace in the winner’s enclosure in attempting to satisfy such demands as his search for the next Rebel's Romance gathers pace.

He added: “Everyone has said we have gone nearly three years without a winner, but you only come here if you can win. Last year I didn’t feel we had that type of horse and that is why I campaigned them the way we did. To be honest I came in this year thinking we had some live bullets. When you say you have luck in racing we had luck in the 2000 Guineas and John didn’t.

"I felt we were unlucky in the Queen Anne with Notable Speech, but John rectified his Guineas form with the way his horse won the St James’s Palace Stakes. You have got to come here thinking you can have a winner as if you don’t then don’t turn up. It is like me running in the Olympics myself. I would not lay up for the first ten yards, but I would know about it and you wouldn’t see me for a few weeks or months later, if ever again.

“You come here with horses that can be competitive as if you don’t you won’t see that horse for a long time afterwards. Ascot is very important, but with your two-year-olds, unless you think they can win, wait and they will reward you as we know going into July and August and we have got other championship meetings to look forward to.

“That is part of the position in what I have got to try and do is produce a champion two-year-old and hopefully that will flourish into a champion three year old.”

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