Northern Lights: How Beverley Shapes Royal Ascot Dreams - By Cornelius Lysaght

It is not just equines that can learn their trade at Beverley where Opulence’s Old Is Gold became a live contender for Royal Ascot with success in the prestigious bet365 Trophy, a win achieved in what can only be described as ‘fine style’.

Also liable to have their education enhanced markedly by the East Yorkshire course are media folk – well, this one anyway, of which more in a moment. 

Let’s deal with the four-legged performers first: the uphill five-furlongs of Beverley’s pair of late-spring, two-year-old features – the Hilary Needler is the other, for fillies – have proved over the years a productive springboard for all of Ascot’s juvenile races.

They’ve produced winners and honourable near-misses in all six: the Coventry, the Queen Mary, the Windsor Castle, the Norfolk, the Albany and the Chesham.  

Amongst those that took the equivalent of the bet365 Trophy before only narrowly missing out at the Royal meeting have been the magnificent Firebreak (2001) – a colt then trained, like the Beverley hero, by the Baldings (before being sold to Godolphin) – and Bungle Inthejungle (2012), representing the stable of Jack Channon’s dad Mick. 

More recent Trophy winners Prince Of Lir (2016) and, twelve months ago, Wathnan Racing’s Shareholder went on to complete the same Norfolk Stakes double which hopefully Opulence’s son of Mehmas will attempt in front of the King and Queen on Ladies’ Day. 

Building on a debut-third at Ascot which was bristling with potential – the front trio (all now winners) were well-clear – Old Is Gold went along smoothly at Beverley before asserting his authority under a confident ride from PJ McDonald.

Clearly the horse will face tougher competition still next, but he’s bred for a place in the big-race line-up, and, with the Balding stable enjoying a season prolific enough to prompt further talk of the trainers’ title, is sure to give a good account of himself. 

Now let me transport you to 1998 when the Jack Berry-trained colt Rosselli and Flanders, a filly under the care of the then fledgling trainer Tim Easterby, won the respective trials, staged in those days as part of a Wednesday evening card.

I was working at Royal Ascot for the BBC, but was not quite as au fait as I should have been about the credentials of what were then the Brian Yearsley Continental and the Hilary Needler Trophies, and all these years later I cringe at the thought of having used some clumsy, dismissive phrase like “little races up North” to assess the form. 

Rosselli, the mount of John Carroll – who now runs a pub at Cockerham near Lancaster, close to where Berry trained – was a 10/1 shot for the Norfolk, and absolutely bolted up; the Lindsay Charnock-ridden Flanders, favourite for the Windsor Castle, did much the same (before success in the Newbury Super Sprint, and later becoming an acclaimed broodmare). 

I didn’t think anything more of it until a week later receiving a note from no less than the BBC Director General’s office, because the chairman of Beverley had heard my analysis and made a complaint about the appalling ignorance of the Ascot correspondent. 

Although he didn’t (quite) demand my summary dismissal, he did insist on me being dispatched north for an instructive visit, with a promise to do his best to stop the loyal staff in the racecourse dining room from spitting in my gravy at lunch. 

And what an enjoyable day it was, in a lovely setting, with a great vibe, especially when you find that your fancy in the big-field sprint has been assigned a nice low draw and, just as important, is trained by an Easterby…or indeed by Andrew Balding. We’re all friends now. 

The Opulence client with naming rights to Old Is Gold is a keen collector of antique watches; that particular mantra regularly works for him like – dare I say – clockwork…hopefully the same applies at Royal Ascot. Good luck to all.