Royal Ascot: Prince of Wales's Stakes statistics, trends, history and replays

When and where? 4.20 at Ascot on June 20. Live in HD on Racing UK Sky Channel 426.

What Grade? Group One

What Course? Round course

What Distance? One mile, one furlong and 212 yards

What Prize Money? £750,000

Ages: Four-year-old and upwards

Weights and Allowances: 3lb for fillies and mares, 3lb for Southern Hemisphere four-year-olds

Key statistics and trends:

21 favourites or joint favourites have been successful in the 50 runnings.

Four winners have been sent off at odds of 8-1 or longer in the last 20 runnings.

Only two winners (So You Think in 2012 and Muhtarram in 1995) have been older than five years old.

19 of the last 20 winners had won over at least a mile and a quarter before.

15 of the winners since the race became a Group One had already won at the top level.

Longest-priced winner: Bob Back 33-1 (1985).

Shortest-priced winner: Royal Palace 1-4 (1968)

Race history:

The championship middle-distance event at the meeting for older horses was first staged over a mile and in 1862 and named after the Prince of Wales of the time, who was later to become King Edward VII.

It was originally for three-year-olds and over a mile and five furlongs, more in the mould of what is now the King Edward VII Stakes and it was taken by the outstanding Derby and St Leger winner Hyperion in 1933.

The race was discontinued after the war, as there was no Prince Of Wales, and it only returned in 1968, a year before the title was bestowed upon Prince Charles. It became a mile and a quarter contest, which was raised to Group One level in 2000.

Famous winners of the race include greats such as Brigadier Gerard (1972), Mtoto (1987 and 1988), Bosra Sham (1997) and Dubai Millennium (2000), both by an impressive eight lengths, Fantastic Light (2001) and the globetrotting mare Ouija Board (2006). The Fugue established a new track record time when beating Magician and Treve in 2 minutes 1.90s in 2014.

There have been three dual winners - Connaught (1969 and 1970), Mtoto (1987 and 1988) and Muhtarram (1994 and 1995).

Of current practitioners, Godolphin are much the most successful owners with five wins to date (Faithful Son (1998), Dubai Millennium (2000), Fantastic Light (2001), Grandera (2002), Rewilding (2011). Aidan O’Brien has won three times, all in the last 10 years.

Past ten winners:

What a magnificent horse this was, and one who only began to receive the credit and affection he deserved during his final season.

A free-sweater, world traveller and European record-breaking prize-getter, Aidan O’Brien’s entire had already added the Coronation Cup to his haul that year despite a delay in his flight to Epsom. This was an even stronger race and Highland Reel answered every question posed by Ryan Moore, taking the lead with a furlong to run and thrusting ahead of fellow smart Group One horses Decorated Knight and Ulysses.

It was a sixth Group One, taking his earnings beyond £6million.

“He’s concrete,” said O’Brien. “He’s passed every test you’d ever wish a thoroughbred to go through since he was two. Every day he turns up in a big race. He’s full of courage, tactically very quick and we’ve travelled him everywhere. Ryan asked him for courage today and he gave it to him.”

Highland Reel was banging his head against the wall against Enable and Cracksman but finished his career in style by claiming the Hong Kong Vase.

A race which centred upon the Japanese runner A Shin Hikari, a devastating winner of the Prix d’Ispahan, had a bit of a surprising result.

With the favourite a bitter disappointment as he flattened out and back to last, there was still a barnstorming finish as 16-1 outsider of the field challenged wide and late to stick his head in front of Found on the line.

While Found was to have her moment in the sun in the Arc de Triomphe, this was actually My Dream Boat’s final win despite staying in training for another season. My Dream Boat had been well beaten by the Japanese challenger in France and bringing him back to the boil was a huge feather in the cap of jockey Adam Kirby and trainer Clive Cox, who had the soft-ground lover spot on here.

"I'm absolutely blown away,” said Cox. “I had admiration for A Shin Hikari when we ran against him in France but I knew we hadn't quite run our race. He found a perfect rhythm today and really found for Adam when he asked him to stretch. I wasn't quite sure if he had won as they were poles apart but I was so pleased that we got the victory.”

There will not have been many more lightly-raced winners of this race than Dermot Weld’s charge, who missed the majority of his three-year-old season and had run a cracker to finish third behind Noble Mission in the Champion Stakes.

This was only his fifth career star, and his first of 2015 as he had missed an intended start in the Tattersalls Gold Cup with illness. However, Free Eagle had been nursed back to health on the day that mattered and was tenacious from the front in an international field, standing his ground on the rail despite a final challenge from The Grey Gatsby.

“He’s a very good horse and when you’ve a brilliant horse like him, it makes the training easy,” said the trainer. “But he has had a lot of problems. He had a heavy head cold a couple of weeks ago and I thought today was going to be in doubt, but we got him right on the day that matters. He was just underdone, you can’t force fitness.”

Free Eagle nonetheless failed to win in three more starts and is now standing at the Irish National Stud.

Unlucky to finish only third in the 2012 Oaks, the Lloyd-Webber family’s home-bred had more than made amends in the intervening period, winning a Nassau Stakes, Yorkshire Oaks and an Irish Champion Stakes.

The Fugue had filled the same third spot behind Al Kazeem in the 2013 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes and had failed to show her best on her reappearance in Dubai yet trainer John Gosden was prepared to be brave once again as he pitched her into a field headed by the sparkling Arc winner Treve. On her preferred lightning fast ground, though, it was remarkably straight-forward as she danced a length and three-quarters clear of her rivals. She ran only once more before injury intervened.

“You have to believe in your horse and I did,” said jockey William Buick. “They can’t win every time but wherever she has gone, she has performed with credit. I have ridden her from the start and she was probably the first good horse I ever rode.”

A tribute to the patience and skill of trainer Roger Charlton, Al Kazeem had been a work in progress at two and three and missed almost his entire four-year-old season through injury.

He had returned in 2013 an improved horse again in the Gordon Richards Stakes before turning over Camelot for a Group One breakthrough in the Tattersalls Gold Cup.

Part of Al Kazeem’s re-emergence was surely due to his partnership with James Doyle and he was given a ride of maturity beyond the young rider’s years here, chasing down the aggressively-ridden Mukhadram in the shadow of the post.

Doyle said: "I thought Paul Hanagan gave Mukhadram a fantastic ride, he got his fractions right. He got a couple of lengths on me turning in and I had to make them up. He's a very tough horse and I'm lucky to be sat on him.

"It's magical really, to get a Royal Ascot winner. It leaves you speechless, it's what it is all about. Hard work pays off and when it does it's fantastic."

The big beast of Australian racing had been busy since his transfer from Bart Cummings to Aidan O’Brien in Ireland in 2011, netting three Group Ones in his first European season and taking to the stage in virtually every conceivable event.

He had unfinished business with the Prince Of Wales’s, having been caught close home 12 months earlier, and arrived with a second consecutive Tattersalls Gold Cup in the bag.

So You Think moved within striking distance in his typically imposing way with a couple of furlongs remaining before Joseph O’Brien was engaged in a brief duel with Ryan Moore and the Queen’s Carlton House. It quickly became apparent who would come out on top, with So You Think pulling away by two and a quarter lengths. It was expected that he would head back for the Southern Hemisphere breeding season at some point, and Royal Ascot was to be his racing swansong.

"I think we've had him a year and a half and it's taken me that long to learn how to train him,” O’Brien confessed.

"Everyone was of the opinion before we got him that he was all speed but I started off on the wrong leg with him and tried to make him stay a mile and a half and did too much with him.

"We went back and listened to what everybody was saying about him, listened to what Bart was saying and telling us what to do and what not to do. We listened at the end.

"We felt he was in a place today he's never been in before.”

Third for Godolphin and Mahmood Al Zarooni in the previous year’s Derby, Rewilding had appeared to have taken another large step forward when absolutely dominant in the Dubai Sheema Classic.

He was nonetheless largely overlooked on his British reappearance, with the Australian sensation So You Think sent off the 4-11 favourite and seemingly ready to justify those skinny odds when Ryan Moore committed him at the top of the home straight.

In Rewilding’s favour was that he had Ascot master Frankie Dettori in the saddle. The Italian had begun pushing him along turning for home but steadily began to make up ground on So You Think, timing his challenge to perfection as he finished a neck up on the line.

"He never gave up," said Dettori. "It was a tremendous battle between two great horses.

"When I got past it was sheer joy - it was a privilege to be in such a great race.

"I'm delighted for Rewilding. He doesn't get the recognition he deserves, he's a very good horse and he showed his true colours today.”

It really was Rewilding’s day, as he was injured in upsetting circumstances on his next appearance in the King George.

The chestnut son of Peintre Celebre will not be remembered as the greatest animal to pass through the hands of Andre Fabre, but there are scant trainers more capable of maximising the potential of an older horse.

This was the time at which Byword was at his most potent, having been brought through the ranks in quiet fashion before being only beaten for speed by Goldikova in the Prix d’Ispahan. The exceptional mare had already boosted the form by taking the previous afternoon’s Queen Anne.

Another furlong was always going to be an aid at Ascot and the white-faced 5-2 favourite needed the extra time to get himself going, powering through under Maxime Guyon inside the distance and keeping the fellow Khalid Abdullah-owned Twice Over at by by half a length.

Byword failed to land another Group One but continued to pay his way for another season and a half.

“Byword has matured this season," Fabre said. "He got a bit sick as a three-year-old, had a virus. We gave him time, and now he is really coming to himself.

"I was a bit worried about the inexperience of the jockey but he had a perfect ride. Maxime rode a beautiful race. Not only is he a good jockey, he is a nice chap.”

Cheaply bought but brilliantly trained by Eric Libaud, Vision D’Etat had begun his career in the backwaters of western France before showing his class on the Parisian circuit by winning the Prix du Jockey Club in 2008. He had returned that season in a similar vein by taking the Prix Ganay and although his trainer was hardly a well-known figure, he was sent off the 4-1 third favourite in a cosmopolitan renewal.

Olivier Peslier was content to bide his time in the early stages and began to wind his mount up at the top of the straight, charging through late to beat favourite Tartan Bearer and Never On Sunday by a length and a half.

"This is the best victory I have ever achieved," Libaud said. "I knew it would be difficult but I knew the horse was going well and Olivier had said to me the straight is very long here. I was quietly confident.”

Although disappointing in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Vision D’Etat became a respected international campaigner and added the Hong Kong Cup to his tally that December.

Few horses will have had a better Classic season without winning a race than this fellow, who was fourth in two Guineas and runner-up in a St James’s Palace and an Irish Champion Stakes.

With another winter on his back, he went from strength to strength for Johnny Murtagh and Aidan O’Brien, opening up with Group One strikes in the Prix Ganay and Tattersalls Gold Cups.

Royal Ascot was a bigger question again yet he answered it unequivocally as an even-money favourite. Duke Of Marmalade needed some stoking up with a couple of furlongs left but was soon in absolute command to come four lengths clear of Phoenix Tower.

"He's an unbelievable horse, he's the real deal," said O'Brien. "He had pins in his legs last year and he had bad fractures in his legs after Goodwood as a two-year-old. Last year we were never really able to train him as he was semi-lame all the time. He wasn't able to use himself the way he is able to this year and he's very athletic now.”

Duke Of Marmalade added a King George and a Juddmonte International later that season and is now standing in South Africa.