After a highly charged roller coaster of a Royal Ascot week, we move into the guts of the flat season and from Wednesday a significant number of serious betting opportunities.
For the Haggas yard the Royal Meeting provided one winner with the hugely impressive Merchant winning on Thursday. The rest of the meeting turned out to be almost fiction, you certainly couldn’t have predicted the events that occured as the fetes turned dramatically against the Somerville Lodge team.
Amazingly, four highly fancied runners missed the cut by either 1 or 2 places. Treasure Time twice in both his handicap options, Elmonjed in the Wokingham and then Archivist in the Golden Gates which is the only race at the meeting restricted to 16 runners , and due to the Ascot reserve horse rules even though 15 went to post he was still unable to take part.
For many Archivist was the bet of the week and following the brilliant run of Bullett Point in the Hunt Cup and after the win of Merchant , the balloting out of Archivist Thursday afternoon lit the touch paper for the series of misfortunes that dogged the yard over the next 48 hours.
Firstly, Supermodel well fancied in the Sandringham was withdrawn having found not to be 100%, then Realign failed to run as expected in the Palace of Holyroodhouse Handicap.
On Saturday the three runners in the Hardwicke failed to run to form and More Thunder’s head defeat in the Wokingham will go down as one of the unluckiest defeats seen at Royal Ascot. However, I am sure he will return to the course for the International next month and get his due rewards.
Away from Ascot, Noble Horizon and First Instinct got narrowly beaten having looked sure to collect. First Principle got loose at the start before his comeback at Newmarket and was withdrawn. Plus Opportunity, Fitzmaurice and Tuesdays Child were all forced to virtually pull up with problems during running.
it must go down as the most unfortunate 48 hour period in the yards long and glorious history.
Sunday with Santorini Star, Monday with Orionis and Tuesday with Kinswoman is expected to see these three bring a return to the winners closure and a sense of reality to the stable. All should win but not at the prices we look for as a minimum for us to get involved.
From Wednesday onwards i expect it to be business as usual with some very interesting declarations and prospects of increased profits.
Diary of a Season Sunday 22nd June 2025
Chrysalis Consortium 
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