Glass Harmonium

The quality of this year’s renewal of Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot on Wednesday may have been lower than standard, but the run of Glass Harmonium was very interesting. The pace was fairly slow early on, and Glass Harmonium pulled hard out the back, which is where you don’t want to be when there is a slow pace. He travelled okay into the straight and was just about to challenge before being checked in his run by Stimulation, and he dropped back to nearly last passing the two furlong marker as a result. He then hung a bit to his right as Ryan Moore moved him to the left to challenge, and it took him a little while to pick up again, he had to start all over again and, by the time he did, his chance had gone, Byword had flown, but he did finish better than anything else to take sixth place.

Everything seemed to conspire against Glass Harmonium here. For starters, there was always a suspicion that 10 furlongs on this very fast ground would be too short for him, and that was compounded by slow pace that Tazeez was allowed to set. He travelled out the back which was not ideal off a slow pace, especially for a horse that may need a longer trip to be seen at his best. And all of this was further compounded by the fact that he was stopped in his run in the home straight, which wasn’t hugely surprising given that there was plenty of crowding between the two-furlong and the one-furlong pole because of the sedate early pace.

The Balymacoll Stud horse will be interesting now if he is given a chance over a mile and a half. He could be a King George horse, if Sir Michael Stoute elects to run him in that contest as well as or instead of Workforce. He could still be that good. The Princess of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket would be another option and the stiff track would help him there.

13th June 2010