Coolmore partnerships consisting of Sue Magnier, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, Peter Brant and Georg von Opel’s Westerberg operation took the leading owner title at Royal Ascot for a fourth time, following an exceptional week that yielded four winners.
The quartet were all trained by Aidan O’Brien, with River Tiber and Paddington both scoring on the opening day in the Coventry Stakes and St James’s Palace Stakes under Ryan Moore. Warm Heart captured the Ribblesdale Stakes for Moore on Thursday, with the Wayne Lordan-ridden Age Of Kings taking Saturday’s Jersey Stakes.
Georg von Opel said: “It has been a fantastic week. We are blessed with a very, very good team and I am proud to be part of it, but there’s a lot of people doing all the work. It’s an incredible team and we’re very lucky.
“Royal Ascot is the greatest event for horses in the world. Particularly from Germany, we have a production of 500-600 foals only, so this is huge for us. Of course, I’ve been living in England for 23 years with the family, who are all English, so I’m getting used to it a little bit, but it’s still fantastic.
“It’s not only the winners, but again it’s a team effort – there have been a lot of seconds, a lot of thirds – so if you look at the whole armada of horses, it’s an amazing effort by everybody who is involved with them. I’m proud of that.”