Royal Hunt Cup
Heritage Handicap, Ascot 17:00 £175,000 added, 3yo plus, 1m, Class 2
Wednesday 18th June 2014

1 Field Of Dream 20/1
2 Chil the Kite 14/1
3 Steeler 33/1
4 Sea Shanty 14/1
5 Ayaar 16/1
NR: Farraaj (IRE), Stirring Ballad, Sweet Lightning
28 ran Distances: 1¼l, 1¼l, shd
TIME 1m 37.88s (fast by 0.92s)

Field Of Dream lands the Royal Hunt Cup for Jamie Osborne and Adam Kirby!

Field Of Dream
© Racehorse Photos

Jamie Osborne pulled off one of the training feats of the year, by producing Field Of Dream to win the £175,000 Royal Hunt Cup first time out this season at 20/1.

Field of Dream, a seven-year-old Oasis Dream gelding, last raced 263 days ago when 12th in the Cambridgeshire at Newmarket. He was sixth in the Royal Hunt Cup in 2013 and fourth in the mile charge down Ascot's straight mile the previous year.

Osborne, sending out his fifth Royal Ascot winner, said: "Field Of Dream has been leading Toast Of New York (the trainer's best horse) up the gallops.

"I expected this! No, I hoped for it. He has run in the last two Hunt Cups, having been to Dubai and having a few runs beforehand. Getting to June, we were nearly piecing him back together rather than training him for a race.

"So we decided to leave Dubai out this year and come fresh for this race in the hope that we could eke a bit more out of him. His work of late has been very good. For the first in his life, he has had a proper break.

"He has done his job of leading Toast Of New York the last couple of weeks. Toast Of New York leaves for Belmont Park a week on Friday. Toast needs good horses to work with.

"It is still a Hunt Cup and you need an unbelievable amount of luck - but it has worked. He has come here fresh, fit and well. His preparation had been great and we did not think the lack of a run was a negative - in fact the opposite, we thought it was a positive. He has got there too soon in fact! It is nice when it comes off but he has done his handicap mark now.

"If it had gone wrong, then there was the Bunbury Cup to go for. We might still go for the race but he has a 6lb penalty now.

"This horse's targets were also going to be in the second half of the year with a bit of nice ground. There is the very valuable new race here in October. So I saw no reason in getting him ready early and we waited and played the steady game. This is Field of Dream's place - stiff miles which are fast-run and competitive. He can weave his way through. Field Of Dream is a good old stick and maybe at the age of seven we have worked out how to train him.

"Adam (Kirby) is a genius - in my mind he is one of the best riders there has ever been. I just leave it to Adam - he has ridden the horse plenty of times. I can ready his body language - if he was happy I was happy.

"I only have 20 non two-year-olds so for us to make any sort of an impact is going to be very difficult. Luckily, I have some much better two-year-olds this year - 30 as against a dozen this time last year. So things are looking better for the future. A couple of nice horses make all the difference."

Royal Hunt Cup Heritage Handicap (Str)
£175,000 added, 3yo plus, 1m, Class 2
28 ran
Going: Good to firm