O'Brien spoilt for choice with 'real deal' Duke

Duke Of Marmalade has a wide range of options after providing Aidan O’Brien and Johnny Murtagh with their third Royal Ascot Group One winner of the week in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes.

Punters had latched on to the Ballydoyle operation’s rich vein of form and piled into the four-year-old, sending him off the even-money favourite to become the first Irish winner of the race since Stanerra in 1983.

Murtagh tracked the early pace aboard the Prix Ganay and Tattersalls Gold Cup winner and started to make his move with two furlongs left to run.

He took the lead a furlong out and shot clear to deny Henry Cecil’s Phoenix Tower by four lengths, with Cambridge winner Pipedreamer a short-head third.

“He’s an unbelievable horse, he’s the real deal,” said O’Brien.

“He got a fracture in a leg after running at Goodwood as two-year-old. We had to pin his leg and it was touch and go if we would get him back.

“He was semi-lame all of the time and we had to train him cautiously last year. He was carrying more puppy fat than you would want and was never really 100%.

“Our vet John Halley tweaked the pin and it has made a big difference. He has been much sounder and easier to get fit and has been quickening better in his work.

“We’ll have to sit down and talk about where to go, and everything will depend on where Henrythenavigator goes next.

“This fellow could stay at a mile and a quarter and go to the Eclipse, drop back to a mile for the Sussex or go up to a mile and a half for the King George.”

Eclipse sponsors Coral make the four-year-old a 4-1 chance from 8s for their race, while Boylesports introduced him at 6-1 for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes.

Murtagh added: “He was the first horse that I rode when I came back from Dubai, and we cantered up at the Curragh. He’s up there with the best horses I’ve ever ridden.”

Cecil was pleased with the effort of Phoenix Tower, but was quick to salute the winner.

He said: “He ran really well and is still improving, but he has finished second and not first.

“He is in the Eclipse and the Juddmonte International at York, but I think I underestimated Duke Of Marmalade. I didn’t realise quite how good he was.”

Pipedreamer’s trainer John Gosden added: “I was absolutely thrilled with that. The winner is clearly the best, but it was a great run nonetheless.

“We can stay in Group Ones but there will be nice Group Twos and Threes over a mile or a mile and one, so we’ll play it by ear.”