Tadej looks like being sent to Coventry in winning at York

Tadej threw his hat in the ring for Royal Ascot with victory in the Irish Thoroughbred Marketing EBF Restricted Novice Stakes at York.

Trained by Archie Watson – who won this race with Bradsell prior to his Coventry Stakes success in 2022 – the Ardad colt was making his third career start.

His two runs prior had hinted at more to come, and under Hollie Doyle he started the evens favourite to get off the mark over six furlongs.

Drawing on the experience of his past runs he duly delivered, securing a neat neck victory from Ed Walker’s Do Or Not Do and thus enter the Coventry market at 25-1 with Paddy Power.

“He is mentally quite immature, but today it fell together nicely and he fought hard,” said Doyle.

“He’s a horse who has got plenty of ability, there’s a lot under the bonnet, but he’s still quite unfurnished.

“The stiff six at Ascot has got to be perfect and he’s shown he can handle a big occasion, he’s got experience of the track so hopefully he’ll run well. We rate him very highly, he was one of our nicest colts and a nice early type.

“We’ve plenty of others in the pipeline that aren’t as forward as him, but as far as the early types go, he was always high on the list.”

Dante’s Lad relished a step up in trip to take the Royal Yorkshire Regiment Handicap for George Boughey and Tom Marquand.

The gelded son of Wootton Bassett joined Boughey from Joseph O’Brien’s stable, with his debut last season a third-placed run when beaten two and a half lengths by current Derby favourite Delacroix.

He got off the mark on the all-weather in his first run for Boughey, but has been unlucky in two turf starts since when unable to carry the form across to the turf.

That changed at York when he went off an overlooked 18-1 chance, and clearly appreciated the extended trip to fare best of all in a tight four-horse finish.

Richard Ryan of co-owners Teme Valley said: “He’s been an unlucky horse, he was robbed last time as unfortunately in the latter part of the race there was a Shadwell horse in difficulty that he had to negotiate.

“With his pedigree we chose to go further and it’s worked out well.

“He’s a nice horse and we might go now for the Golden Gates (at the Royal meeting), he’s been a bit unlucky but that was a lovely run.”

Elsewhere on the card, Frankies Dream prevailed for Jennie Candlish in the Reg Bond “Always And Forever” Handicap, winning by a short head under Hector Crouch at 11-2, while there was a popular winner of the last as the Marquand-ridden eight-year-old Mums Tipple (Richard Hannon, 7-2 favourite) rolled back the years for his first win since March 2023.