Royal Ascot: Unequal Love a Wokingham wonder for Haggas

claimed his first winner of this year’s meeting as emerged victorious in the Wokingham Stakes.

The master of Somerville Lodge had saddled 15 previous winners at the showpiece fixture, but with and both second on Friday and and finishing third earlier in the week, it was in danger of becoming a frustrating few days.

Unequal Love (12-1) had won five of her nine starts in the colours of Cheveley Park Stud, including a Listed victory at on her first run of the current campaign, and was last seen finishing fifth in the Group Two Greenlands Stakes in Ireland.

The daughter of Dutch Art was dropping back into handicap company and after quickening up to lead, she had enough in reserve to fend off the strong-finishing 4-1 favourite by half a length, with only a head further behind in third.

Haggas said: “I wasn’t going to run her to be honest with you, but Mrs (Patricia) Thompson said she had all her grandchildren coming and that she would like a runner, so I said I’d be delighted – what do I know!

“We knew the pace was on that side, I’m so thrilled, absolutely delighted. She’s homebred so to have a winner at Ascot for Cheveley Park, it’s just brilliant.”

Marquand said: “It was good to have a winner yesterday, but without a Somerville Lodge winner it just felt that the week was just lacking something.

“I’m thrilled to win on this filly as she’s one of my favourites in training. She’s not a Group One filly, but just her demeanour and everything about her and being one of Cheveley Park’s it’s nice.

“To be fair you could have nearly written her off being drawn one, it looked an impossible task on paper.

“She’s a lot quicker to get moving now and it’s a case of measuring when to go and win the race, but I had no choice about when to go. I couldn’t believe how well she was moving after a couple of furlongs.”

Maureen Haggas said: “Unequal Love is the most gorgeous, lovely, genuine filly – and it’s great to have a winner for Cheveley Park. They are top-class owner-breeders and huge contributors to British racing, so for us to have a winner for them at Royal Ascot is fantastic. They’ve been supporters of ours for donkey’s years. They put a lot into British racing and they really do deserve to be winning races like this.

“We all want to have winners at Ascot. Our horses, the ones we thought were going to run ok, have run well, and we have had seconds and thirds, so to get a winner is more of a relief than anything else.

“Our expectations before the race were very low. She ran really well in a Group race in Ireland and we obviously then went up in the weights, because we didn’t realise she was going to come here – this wasn’t in the plan, and then Mrs Thompson had brought all her family and had the box, and said, would you run her, because they wanted a runner, so William said no problem. Then she was drawn one, which looked a terrible draw on what’s gone on this week, so really it just shows how much we know, because we also thought she wanted softer ground and had too much weight, so we are patently clueless!

“I think you can get away with running them on faster ground on a level track - this is a level, climbing track and you can get away with it. She’s just a tough, genuine filly and she really ran well, and she wanted to win, which is what it is all about.” 

James Doyle said of Dark Trooper: “He’s a dude, he’s run a cracker. The action was just away from me a bit – he prefers to follow, follow, follow, and have a crack. But the runners dropped away and my targets were no longer targets inside the three, so we had to make a bit of running by ourselves, but really proud of him.”

Saffie Osborne was left frustrated after flying from last place into third on .

She said: “Obviously I was sat last – a lot of traffic issues. It’s frustrating as I felt like another couple of strides and I would have been in front, but it’s one of those things in those big-field handicaps.” 

Trainer Charlie Hills added:  “We were a little bit concerned about the ground coming into the race, and Orazio probably was just a little bit indecisive on the ground to start with. Then once he passed one horse, he flew home. 

"He is a pretty decent horse – another few strides, he would have won. 

"I am delighted with him and there are a good few options now going forwards. He is in the Bunbury Cup at Newmarket and we will have a look at that. There are some nice handicaps going forwards and it would be nice to hopefully end up in Group company at some stage.”