Enceladus reigns in King George V battle

Enceladus added to a hugely successful week for Joseph O’Brien following a determined King George V Stakes success.

The Sea The Stars colt (7-1) arrived in Berkshire on the back of a maiden victory at Cork and certainly appreciated the step up to a mile and half.

In the hands of Ryan Moore, the retained rider for Joseph’s father Aidan, Enceladus made his move inside the final two furlongs and he never looked back, providing the trainer with his fourth success of the meeting.

Roger Varian’s Al Azd and the Johnny Murtagh-trained Believed made it a three-way tussle, but Moore kept them at arm’s length to secured his 95th Royal Ascot success by half a length in the famous Niarchos family silks of Flaxman Stables.

“The horse was very tenacious and I’m really so delighted for Maria (Niarchos), she’s been so good to me all through my training career and to have another Royal Ascot winner for her and the team is very special,” said O’Brien.

“We’re very lucky to be able to train some good horses with nice pedigrees for Maria, this guy had a very good two-year-old season and we thought he’d enjoy stepping up in trip. The plan was to wait until today to do that and I’m delighted to come here and get it done.

“If you win at handicap at Ascot, particularly one of the three-year-old races, generally you’re a stakes or Group horse in the making.

“He’s potentially a St Leger horse, but he’ll have to go to a trial between now and then. He is a Group horse in the making, no doubt.

“We have a fantastic team at home and a great team of owners that support us with some lovely horses and we’ve been building that for the last number of seasons.

“It’s such a tough place to come, we had a chat among ourselves last week and thought we had a very strong team but a lot of them were big prices so you lose a little bit of confidence when you see 20-1 besides your name but we thought they were really well and the season has gone really well so far.

“To have four winners is far beyond an incredible feeling.”