My Dream Boat sails home for Cox and Kirby

Kirby is all smiles after the triumph of My Dream Boat. Picture: Racingfotos.com

Clive Cox and Adam Kirby were in dreamland as My Dream Boat, the outsider of the party, won the Group One Prince of Wales’s Stakes, the feature race on day two of Royal Ascot this afternoon.

Having finished a well-beaten fifth behind today’s warm favourite, the Japanese raider A Shin Hikari in the Prix d’Isaphan at Chantilly last month, Cox’s charge dramatically reversed placings this time around.

The victory gave the trainer his sixth victory at Royal Ascot and his second Group One winner in 24 hours following Profitable’s success in the King’s Stand Stakes yesterday. Both races form part of the QIPCO British Champions Series.

Off an even gallop set by A Shin Hikari, Adam Kirby settled My Dream Boat out the back of the field. However, in the home straight, the son of Lord Shanakill made steady progress racing near the stands’ side rail and thundered home inside the final furlong to catch Aidan O’Brien’s Found and get up on the line to register a neck success.

“I’m absolutely blown away,” Cox said. “It has been an amazing week, the horses have been running so well. 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.

“Any horse who comes back from a race, you just try and nurture them back to that confidence you hope they are carrying into every race. Stuart Shilston (ex-jockey), rides him out every morning and he loves him to bits. You see this horse go to the start today, he was absolutely bucking so in spite of things not going right in France, he was in pretty good nick. I’m delighted.”

Next month’s Coral-Eclipse at Sandown is a possible destination for the four-year-old, who will also be aimed at QIPCO British Champions Day in October.

“We will also look to come back to Ascot in October for Champions Day as he has showed his liking for the track,” Cox confirmed.

Kirby, whose partner Megan gave birth to a son, Charlie, yesterday morning, was clearly on cloud nine following the race.

“I’m chuffed to bits with him,” he said. “I thought he was a good horse and, deep in my heart, I thought I had every chance of being in the first three. To pull it out of the bag like that and for him to put everything he had into today’s race is indescribable really.

The luckless Found was finishing second in a QIPCO British Champions Series race for a fourth time. She has yet to win one.

“I can’t believe we got beaten.” was jockey Ryan Moore‘s reaction after the race while Aidan O’Brien, the Galileo fillies’ trainer, added: “That is racing. She quickened very well. I think she will probably have a break now and then maybe America again.”

Japanese superstar A Shin Hikari finished last, albeit only four and three-quarters of a length behind the winner.

Jockey Yutaka Take confined his views to a short: “He felt good, but was a little too keen.”