The Times
19 June 2026
Beware exaggeration but we must say it as it seems. For the third day running at Ascot, all the fashion, all the pageantry or the hoopla was eclipsed by what happened out on the track. The Gold Cup has been running since 1807 but in all that time there has never been a more stirring, more implacable duel than when Scandinavia finally ran down last year’s winner Trawlerman yesterday afternoon to give Aidan O’Brien an unprecedented century of winners at this royal meeting.
This was a race about contest not controversy. No fuss about team tactics because Trawlerman always goes from the front. Everyone got over excited by Coolmore’s riders on Tuesday but the fact is that, in its very essence, using a pacemaker is team tactics. What happened there was they went to excess. You are not there to help your rivals but you cannot blatantly try and push them out. What happened yesterday was two horses and two jockeys laying it on the line.
If you are going to run two and a half miles round Ascot you will have to dig very deep. It’s four times further than the minimum racing trip but this is what Trawlerman does and Ascot is where he thrives. He has twice slogged home in the Long Distance Cup on Champions Day, the first time beating O’Brien’s great stayer Kyprios who then bested him by a length in the Gold Cup. Last June he thrashed the O’Brien contender Illinois but now Ballydoyle was fielding Scandinavia, last year’s St Leger winner and on a six race winning streak.
Scandinavia is half Trawlerman’s age and has already won two races this season. Trawlerman has not run since starring here last October and has had an eye affliction which means for the first time in history a horse rather than a human walked round the Ascot paddock in dark glasses. The specially crafted goggles were whipped off at the start and once the gates opened the pattern was set. Trawlerman and William Buick would lead and Scandinavia and Ryan Moore would stalk them. It was up to William to set the fractions and if Scandinavia wanted to come and tackle him, he would have to work.
Passing the post with a circuit to go the dogged Caballo De Mer moved up to take second and they raced as trio. Running up the hill Trawlerman began to stretch them. By the time they turned in everyone was pumping and Moore was all punching pistons as he set his horse in pursuit. Caballo De Mer hung on to the two furlong pole before dropping away exhausted as Scandinavia close for the fight.
We can argue about the skills and merits of previous performers but today’s horses and certainly today’s jockeys are fitter than their forbears. Buick and Moore both have state of the art gyms in their houses and their equine partners are what you get after modern conditioning is applied to 300 years of genetically programmed athlete. Scandinavia closed but Trawlerman had the rail and was stretching for the line.
“It’s one thing getting to him,” screamed the commentator as they flashed past the furlong pole, “another getting past. Trawlerman won’t let him.” Surely the old horse with couldn’t hold him after such an absence but at the white 100 metre pole he switched his leads and for a few more desperate strides kept the young pretender at bay. They were coming past right in front of us, heads and necks stretching, their rider’s bodies clamped in compulsively as they reached for the line. Every fibre was in the effort, it was only by a head at the wire but youth was the winner. I was here for Grundy grinding out Bustino in 1975. On Tuesday I thought Bow Echo/Gstaad almost matched them. Now this race has to be right in the mix.
They had Trawlerman’s stable companion a distant third and Joseph O’Brien’s Al Riffa in fourth, but it was only the principals that mattered. It was father Aidan’s 10th Gold Cup and a fourth for Ryan Moore and his 96th at the meeting. They said lovely things about both horses but they didn’t need to. Memories are made from days like this.