THIS IS WHY, GOGGLES, THROUGH A FOREIGNER'S EYES, NOLA SOUL & COURAGE MON AMI.

This is why races beyond 2-miles are my favourite races on the flat; this is why breeders should be incentivised to breed for stamina, not speed; this is just why ....

Even a sad old cynic like me could not help but be mesmerised by yesterday's Ascot Gold Cup. A magnificent race where the runner-up was as equally cheered as the winner. Scandinavia may ultimately be the classier horse, yet with the Gold Cup being Trawlerman's first race of the season, after being seriously unwell at Easter, nobody can be certain that if the two clash again later in the season, perhaps in the Goodwood Cup, that the result will be the same.

Nothing cheers the soul like two valiant and brave horses fighting a duel from three or four-furlongs out, with neither reteating from the battle by an inch. In the final furlong and a half  my thought on who would win changed at least three-times, finally landing on a remarkable victory for the John Gosden horse. Then, in a moment of time too short to measure, it all changed and Scandanavia thurst his head to the fore. A dead-heat would have been the only satisfactory result but life and sport do not work like that, although sometimes it seems that sport in ghostly scripted in a manner fit for a Hollywood blockbuster. Of course, Aidan O'Brien would train his 100th Royal Ascot winner in the Ascot Gold Cup.

If we want breeders to turn their attention back to breeding for stamina, and it would be far more beneficial to the thoroughbred species if they did, the prize money for the Ascot Gold Cup must be increased in line with the King George & Queen Elisabeth Stakes and the Epsom Derby. Indeed, all the Cup races need to be increased in value. In fact, Ascot are dishonouring the history of the Gold Cup in allowing so many of the races run at the track to be worth more when their history is so much shorter.

(Yesterday I think I wrote that Aidan ran two non-triers in the Prince of Wales's Stakes. Obviously he ran only one non-trier, though in the past he has run two or more. I should look-up what I wrote but as it has nagged at me since yesterday afternoon, it seems pretty certain that I erred once more).

It is fascinating, at least to me, that the goggles seemingly invented to treat Trawlerman's rare eye condition that makes him sensitive to sunlight, may be seen more often in the future. I once wrote to Martin Pipe on this topic, asking if horses eyesight, as with humans, alters as they get older as I thought it might be a reason why horses can inexplicably fall when normally they are safe jumpers. I suspect horses vision is an under-appreciated branch of veterniary science.

As a bit of a Royal Ascot cynic, I am beginning to view the royal meeting through the eyes of foreigners. I have never doubted the gem that is Royal Ascot, it is only, really, the dress code for men that gets my goat, but when professional racing figures from around the world gush with pride just for being a small part of the whole extravaganza, it hits home to me that in Royal Ascot British racing has something no other racing jurisdiction possesses and that the rest of the world look on with envious eyes. I am often wrong in my opinions, though not so wrong as I am about Royal Ascot. That said, you could not get me trussed-up in a top hat and tails if you offered me a lamp and three wishes.

Apart from the obvious answers, if you asked me to name a horse that has run at Royal Ascot in the first three-days that I would like to own, it would Fozzy Stack's Nola Soul. He was quite the naughty boy yesterday, even during the first three furlongs of the Chesham, giving the highly experienced and cracking good horseman Seamie Heffernan an unfortable ride, with the horse tugging at the reins and throwing his head around. All that effort fighting his jockey should have taken the edge off his energy, yet he kept on finding to win quite impressively. When he matures, he could be a very smart indeed.

On yesterday's I.T.V. coverage, I was pleased to see a feature on Courage Mon Ami, Frankie's last Ascot Gold Cup winner. He became too prone to injury to stay in training as a racehorse and Wathnam sent him to Holly Campbell to retrain at whatever he proved to be good at, which has turned out to be jumping, be that show jumps or cross-country. He is already winning rosettes. I can be sceptical towards Wathnam and their policy of buying their winners, especially in the run-up to the royal meeting, yet now I want to figuratively shake their hands for the after-racing care they are giving to Courage Mon Ami, and I hope all the horses they are forced to retire.