Betfair: The Timeform Weekend Review: Popular winners round off Ascot in style

Today’s update from Betfair:

Timeform reflect on a weekend which saw the conclusion of another excellent Ascot meeting…

The final day of this year’s Royal Ascot saw a Group 1 victory for Michael Bell’s Art Connoisseur in the Golden Jubilee. Tom Queally, replacing the suspended Jamie Spencer, took advantage of a gap along the stands rail and his mount produced an impressive turn of foot to put the race to bed. The pair held the late charge of American raider Cannonball to win their first Group 1 by a neck.

The Hardwicke Stakes featured possibly the best backed horse of the day in Godolphin’s Campanologist and the four-year-old went off the 2/1 favourite. Frankie Dettori was always well positioned behind the two early pace setters and he looked to have made a race-winning move when he kicked clear of his rivals two furlongs out only to be caught close home, to the dismay of many punters, by John Gosden’s Bronze Cannon. It was Gosden’s first winner of the 2009 Royal Ascot meeting and, apart from 2003, he has now had a victory at the meeting in every year since 1990.

It turned out that the place to be drawn in the Wokingham was high on Saturday and William Haggas’s High Standing came home a good winner, staying on strongly under Ryan Moore to beat Asset in a manner which suggested he could well go on to better things. The curtain was brought down on another fantastic meeting with the Queen Alexandra Stakes, ran over the marathon trip of two miles and five furlongs, and Nicky Henderson’s 12-year-old Caracciola was a popular winner.

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