Review: Gr.2 Queen’s Vase

Al Qareem set a strong gallop in front for much of the way and was still in a clear lead at the top of the straight but began to tire soon after and was passed by Zechariah and Colin Keane.

After seeing off Hafit, Zechariah looked likely to prevail, but he was joined on the line by the fast-finishing Eldar Eldarov and after a tense wait for connections the judge confirmed the latter had won the day by a nose.

Varian said: “I wasn’t sure. I thought we were a good winner before the line and a good winner after the line, but we got the bob wrong, which sometimes can go against you.

“I’m delighted for this horse and these connections, they’re supporting the industry very strongly, they’re supporting me. Days like this are very special to all of us and to get the horse home in front with a lot of expectation is always satisfying.

“The Irish Derby came too soon, he didn’t thrive in the spring. We had a chat about him in the winter, he won at Nottingham in a similar style to the Derby winner won at Nottingham – those end of October maidens. Look at the horses that come out of them, Golden Horn, this year’s Derby winner (Desert Crown).

“We won nicely so, of course, you’re excited about him, hoping you can get to a Derby trial, which we couldn’t do with him. When he went to Newcastle we thought, ‘if we’re going to Ascot we’ve got to run’, but he was only 90 per cent. He had to run to get a run under his belt, that was a strong novice.

“Then we were unsure, King Edward or the Vase, the ground we were unsure about as well. I thought on the fast ground that he looks like a horse laden with stamina, let’s go the distance, jump out and ride him to get home. He got every inch and David said he couldn’t pull him up.

“Who knows what the future holds in terms of the trip, but he obviously stays very well. I’m delighted, there’s a lot to come from this horse, I think his best days are ahead of him,” he said.

Zechariah trained by the father and son team of Martyn and Freddie Meade took the narrow reverse on the chin.

“We thought we’d got it for a minute, but you can’t really tell. We were sort of in the stands and were sort of too far away to really tell. Looking at the photo, it was a difficult one to call, I would have thought.

“A dead-heat would have been a better result. We have been waiting to run him over this sort of distance and he has been building up to it. Of course, the betting didn’t show that but we really had a lot of faith in him and it could have been well-placed at one stage.

“Obviously today was a bit of an experiment to make sure our judgment was right that he would get the one mile six, and clearly that has been shown now and so that opens up a lot more opportunities.

“He could be a cup horse in time. We ran him at Lingfield and he didn’t really cope with that in the (Derby) trial and that just wasn’t really right for him.

“We thought this would be a nice flat track, which would suit him and it did. He ran lovely apart from the result.”

Hafit was narrowly beaten into third in a Group race for a second time as he finished strongly to go down by a nose and neck.