Favourite undone by well-timed finish from Shareta

Perfectly relaxed, last year’s Arc runner-up appeared to have slightly more scope and agility than course specialist and race favourite The Fugue, owned and bred by composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber and his wife Madeleine.

And so it proved in the one-and-a-half mile Group One race which was contested in increasingly desperate conditions as a sharp shower turned the race into a real slog.

The Fugue and William Buick appeared to have the race won – until Shareta, owned by the Aga Khan, produced a late burst of speed under jockey Christophe Lemaire to take the spoils back to France.

This is not an event in which the French have any recent history, but winning trainer Alain de Royer-Dupre noted with interest that another of the Aga Khan family’s operation had provided the winner of the 1959 renewal in Petite Etoile.

However this autumn’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe – Europe’s most prestigious race – is not an immediate target for Shareta. Royer-Dupre said his heroine will only line up at Longchamp in October if the ground is good, and that she will be retired at the end of this season.

As for the runner-up, trainer John Gosden will send The Fugue to the Breeders’ Cup in America where good ground will be guaranteed. A trainer not to make excuses, he implied that the sudden rain did not help her cause.

Victorious with Ladbrokes St Leger prospect Thought Worthy on Wednesday, this was a challenging day for Gosden and his jockey Buick – their highly-rated Royal Ascot winner Newfangled was dramatically pulled up in the Jaguar Cars Lowther Stakes with a serious pelvic injury.

The race was won by the unbeaten Rosdhu Queen who is trained by Lester Piggott’s son-in-law William Haggas, a proud Yorkshireman who was celebrating his 52nd birthday.

The winner’s future targets include the Flying Childers Stakes at Doncaster’s St Leger meeting.

Another horse with top targets in its sights is Royal Ascot winner Hototo, who landed the £300,000 DBS Premier Yearling Stakes for Hambleton trainer Kevin Ryan and Yorkshire-based jockey Phillip Makin.

The Windsor Castle Stakes winner hit the front in a frenetic race before being headed briefly by Tim Easterby’s Body and Soul, the eventual third, and then regaining the lead where it mattered most – in the shadow of the winning post.

Makin said the step up in trip to six furlongs paid off, with Hototo likely to compete in Redcar’s prestigious two-year-old trophy race later in the season.

“It’s great for the yard to be winning races like that,” said the rider. “I was looking for a lead but he is so enthusiastic out there up front and saw it out to the end. Even at Ascot he was crying out for the extra furlong. He really knuckled down.”

Makin and Ryan won the corresponding race 12 months ago with Bogart, one of three runners for the yard in today’s Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes.

Yorkshire Post columnist Paul Mulrennan rides Bogart in the prestigious sprint, with Makin on Duke of York Stakes winner Tiddliwinks and former National Hunt jockey Graham Lee aboard Masamah, who finished eighth to Margot Did in last year’s Nunthorpe.

Ryan offered this assessment of his three chances.

“Tiddliwinks seems to love York and always saves his A-game for there. He likes good ground and has had a break since his last run,” said the handler.

“We were a little disappointed with Masamah’s run in the race last year, but he is a very good horse. We were delighted with his run at Goodwood. It was a better race than when he won last year and that performance was right up there with his best.

“We are hoping that a return to York will help Bogart reproduce his best form.”

There was another local winner; Dutch Rose winning for the fifth time this season in the finale for in-form Nawton trainer David O’Meara.

Yet, while Ladies Day offered high quality racing, the paddock talk centred on the still unbeaten Frankel’s 13th successive victory in the Juddmonte International, York’s richest race.

His eighth consecutive win at Group One level, Frankel also cemented his place in the record books by becoming the first horse to notch an official handicap rating of 140 for a second time. Only Dancing Brave in the 1986 Arc has recorded a higher figure of 141.

However, the Qipco British Champions Day at Ascot – rather than the Arc – is more likely to witness the £100m wonderhorse’s farewell to racing before he is retired to stud.

“He’s absolutely fine and he’s come back to the yard very pleased with himself,” said Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager to owner Prince Khalid Abdullah.

Meanwhile, Sir Peter O’Sullevan, the BBC’s voice of racing for 50 years, described Frankel’s performance as “mesmerising and very emotional.”

“The whole exercise was covered with an apparent minimum of effort,” he said.

“When you think of the talent of St Nicholas Abbey, who is a very good horse, he just went up to all of them and was pulling all over them.”