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| Staff Writer |
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Tadej threw his hat into the Royal Ascot ring with victory in the Irish Thoroughbred Marketing EBF Restricted Novice Stakes at York. Trained by Archie Watson, who won this race with Bradsell prior to his Gr.1 Coventry Stakes success in 2022, the Ardad colt was making his third career start.
His two previous runs had hinted at more to come, and under Hollie Doyle he delivered a neat neck victory from Ed Walker's Do Or Not Do over six furlongs.
"He is mentally quite immature, but today it fell together nicely and he fought hard," said Doyle. "He's a horse who has got plenty of ability, there's a lot under the bonnet, but he's still quite unfurnished. The stiff six at Ascot has got to be perfect and he's shown he can handle a big occasion, he's got experience of the track so hopefully he'll run well."
Dante's Lad relished a step up in trip to take the Royal Yorkshire Regiment Handicap for George Boughey and Tom Marquand. The gelded son of Wootton Bassett joined Boughey from Joseph O'Brien's stable, with his debut last season a third-placed run when beaten two and a half lengths by current Derby contender Delacroix.
He got off the mark on the all-weather in his first run for Boughey, but had been unlucky in two turf starts since when unable to carry the form across to the turf. That changed when he went off an overlooked chance, clearly appreciating the extended trip to fare best of all in a tight four-horse finish.
Richard Ryan of co-owners Teme Valley said: "He's been an unlucky horse, he was robbed last time as unfortunately in the latter part of the race there was a Shadwell horse in difficulty that he had to negotiate. With his pedigree we chose to go further and it's worked out well. He's a nice horse and we might go now for the Golden Gates at the Royal meeting, he's been a bit unlucky but that was a lovely run."
Elsewhere on the card, Frankies Dream prevailed for Jennie Candlish in the Reg Bond Handicap, winning by a short head under Hector Crouch. There was a popular winner of the last as the Marquand-ridden 8YO Mums Tipple, trained by Richard Hannon, rolled back the years for his first win since March 2023.
Watson's team rate Tadej very highly, with the trainer's assistant noting: "We rate him very highly, he was one of our nicest colts and a nice early type. We've plenty of others in the pipeline that aren't as forward as him, but as far as the early types go, he was always high on the list."