Campanelle another winner of the Queen Mary for Wesley Ward

It appeared we would not be seeing a Royal Ascot in 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic continuing to mean sports were being cancelled. However, it was finally given the go ahead and took place behind closed doors and without spectators in attendance. Wesley Ward again travelled over to the UK from the US with a strong team and was expecting some success from his runners.

Ward had several near misses before finally landing a winner with Campanelle in the Queen Mary. She went into the race as the general second favourite behind the even money favourite More Beautiful for the O’Brien team, and was well supported on the run up with the best bonus codes on offer. Campanelle looked an exciting prospect when breaking her maiden on her first and only previous start. This was a 3 ½ length victory at Gulfstream Park back in May, when she led for much of the race and easily extended clear in the straight to win comfortable under Nik Juarez.

Moving to Ascot and she had Frankie Dettori as her jockey and shot out of the gates to chase the leaders on the far side. She was racing on her own and slightly away from others, having started in stall one. She was then ridden from around two furlongs out, but made good headway to challenge strongly from a furlong out. She then led inside the final furlong and kept on well to hold the fast finishing challenge of Sacred. The latter another well fancied horse going into the race.

This was a very impressive victory from the Daughter of Kodiac and she looks a horse to follow moving forward. A lot of things went wrong in running but she was still able to win and the future now appears very bright for another young Wesley Ward trained sprinter. It also meant a fourth victory in the race for the trainer, who was had much success in recent years.

The trainer had his first winner in the race in 2009 with Jealous Again. He then followed this up with two very impressive winners back to back with Acapulco in 2015 and then the mighty Lady Aurelia in 2016. The latter winning the race by seven lengths. Four years later and Campanelle has followed up and there is no doubt there will be more in the coming seasons ahead in a race he clearly targets.