Battaash secures historic hat-trick in King George at Goodwood

Watch a full replay of how the rapid sprinter again left his rivals trailing in five-furlong feature.

Battaash delighted his supporters with a third successive victory in the £312,000 King George Qatar Stakes at Goodwood.

For the second year in row, the Charlie Hills-trained speedball had found the now-retired Blue Point too strong in the King’s Stand at Royal Ascot, but he was a prohibitively-priced 1-4 favourite to claim a ninth career win in a five-furlong Group Two he dominated in 2017 and 2018.

The five-year-old jumped out of the stalls smartly and after taking an early lead from outsider Ornate, he took over passing the two-furlong marker.

Just when it looked he would go on to record another emphatic success, the high-class Australian mare Houtzen – making her first start for Martyn Meade – came from out of the pack to throw down a challenge, and briefly looked set to make a real race of it.

In the end, however, Battaash was well on top as he passed the post three-quarters of a length to the good, with Ornate boxing on admirably for third.

Hills said: "It is such a pleasure to be involved in a horse like this. To win three King George Stakes, I think it is the first time it has ever been done.

"I am quite emotional - he is a special horse. Jim just said he seemed to be idling there in front, which is good because he is taking his racing much better and there are a good few races now we can target towards the end of the year.

"Sheikh Hamdan is keen to go to York next. He has not won there before, but I still scratch my head because there is no reason why he would not handle a track like that. Then we will probably go to Ireland after that, all being well.

"There are only so many Group Ones over five furlongs, so he's got to go back to York. He was only beaten a couple of lengths last year. In the past though we've driven him up the night before, and I think this time we'll take him up on the morning of the race."

He added: "Bob [Grace, the groom] and Battaash are a marriage made in heaven, they get on so well. I am so pleased for Bob. He has been in this game a long time and looked after Battaash's sire Dark Angel. Then we had Battaash's dam as well in our yard. It is lovely teamwork and it is just a pleasure to have a wonderful horse like him."

Crowley said: "He's brilliant. Obviously he was not as visually impressive today as last year; he wasn't doing a lot in front and to be fair, I never used my stick on him today, just hands and heels.

"Maybe if I had given him a reminder he would have gone on and been more impressive, but I really didn't want him to go on and win by five or six lengths and have a harder race than he had to. We've got other races for him this year and I'd love it to be third time lucky in the Nunthorpe at York.

"He's a special horse. He's all speed and he probably only just gets five furlongs. If there were four and a half furlong races around he'd be unbelievable. Ascot just finds him out a little bit; it's almost like six furlongs there, but he loves it here. Hopefully it's third time lucky for the Nunthorpe.

"He's settling down a bit - he was much better going out and going down to the start today, and he's growing up a lot. It's a pleasure to be associated with this horse."