Unequal Love is Wokingham wonder for Haggas

William Haggas claimed his first winner of this year’s Royal Ascot meeting as Unequal Love emerged victorious in the Wokingham Stakes.

The master of Somerville Lodge had saddled 15 previous winners at the showpiece fixture, but with Space Legend and Lake Forest both second on Friday and Doom and Maljoom finishing third earlier in the week, it was in danger of becoming a frustrating few days.

Unequal Love (12-1) had won five of her nine starts in the colours of Cheveley Park Stud, including a Listed victory at Newmarket on her first run of the current campaign, and was last seen finishing fifth in the Group Two Greenlands Stakes in Ireland.

The daughter of Dutch Art was dropping back into handicap company and after quickening up to lead, she had enough in reserve to fend off the strong-finishing 4-1 favourite Dark Trooper by half a length, with Orazio only a head further behind in third.

Haggas said: “I wasn’t going to run her to be honest with you, but Mrs (Patricia) Thompson said she had all her grandchildren coming and that she would like a runner, so I said I’d be delighted – what do I know!

“We knew the pace was on that side, I’m so thrilled, absolutely delighted. She’s homebred so to have a winner at Ascot for Cheveley Park, it’s just brilliant.”

Marquand said: “It was good to have a winner yesterday, but without a Summerville Lodge winner it just felt that the week was just lacking something.

“I’m thrilled to win on this filly as she’s one of my favourites in training. She’s not a Group One filly, but just her demeanour and everything about her and being one of Cheveley Park’s it’s nice.

“To be fair you could have nearly written her off being drawn one, it looked an impossible task on paper.

“She’s a lot quicker to get moving now and it’s a case of measuring when to go and win the race, but I had no choice about when to go. I couldn’t believe how well she was moving after a couple of furlongs.”

James Doyle said of Dark Trooper: “He’s a dude, he’s run a cracker. The action was just away from me a bit – he prefers to follow, follow, follow, and have a crack. But the runners dropped away and my targets were no longer targets inside the three, so we had to make a bit of running by ourselves, but really proud of him.”

Saffie Osborne was left frustrated after flying from last place into third on Orazio.

She said: “Obviously I was sat last – a lot of traffic issues. It’s frustrating as I felt like another couple of strides and I would have been in front, but it’s one of those things in those big-field handicaps.”