Royal Ascot has had a bit of everything this week and it had it's David beats Goliath moment when Shaquille, trained by Julie Camacho in Malton, not only beat the best three-year-old sprinters around in the Commonwealth Cup but gave them a five-length head start when he blew the stalls.
Shaquille's usual modus operandi is to make all the running and in his last four starts he has hardly seen another horse but this time the 9-1 shot reared as the gates opened and to all intents of purpose it was game over; you might get away with that in a mile and a half race but not in Group One sprint.
But the colt put up what jockey Oisin Murphy described as an ‘extraordinary performance' not only to get on the back of the field but then pick up and sustain it to pass the red hot favourite Little Big Bear in the last 100 yards to win by a length and a quarter going away.
Camacho, who took over from her father Maurice, who still runs the stud at which Shaquille was bred by her owners, has about 65 horses and, with her husband Steve Brown, they do well in the north and are growing but a Group One winner, at Ascot to boot, was beyond her wildest expectations.
The trainer took herself off to a quiet corner of the racecourse to watch because of nerves. “I thought, ‘well that's it, he's blown his chance,†she confessed of his tardy start. “He was good, wasn't he?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/racing/2023/06/23/TELEMMGLPICT000340399591_16875410452060_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqH_vYiwVODNMhQRWnX8g_Uos--Ay9sgguUgqYEQOVzUc.jpeg?imwidth=480 480w,