Kemari and Real World deliver for Godolphin on Day 2 at Royal Ascot

Godolphin opened their Royal Ascot account with a double on Day 2 after Kemari took the Group 2 Queen’s Vase and Real World claimed victory in the Royal Hunt Cup on Wednesday.

The Charlie Appleby-trained Kemari, under William Buick, produced a strong run on the home stretch to bring up Godolphin's first winner of the festival, leading Woodsworth and Stowell by one and-a-half lengths and one and-a-quarter lengths, respectively.

“I must give the team at home a lot of credit for this – Kemari has been a challenging horse during the winter,” Appleby told the Godolphin website.

“He was gelded, and had his hood on for his first start, but full credit to them, they have done a great job.”

Kemari was runner-up on his racecourse debut at Newmarket in May before running away a four-length winner of a maiden at Yarmouth two weeks later.

“William praised Kemari highly after that win at Yarmouth,” Appleby said. “I have to say, I sat on the fence slightly and felt he was a horse who was progressing, but was he progressing quickly enough to be able to step up into today’s league?

“He has proved me wrong and William right, which is the great thing about having a team such as we have. We all put our opinions in and hopefully we get the right result. But the horse is definitely a horse who is going the right way.

“I hope he will make up into a Cup horse for next year. This year - as we all know, in the past few years three-year-olds in the Melbourne Cup, they have produced the goods.

“Whether he gets to that level, we will see, but we will enjoy today. We will have the discussions with our principals and managers during the next few weeks, and map the autumn out. He’s got a profile that is working in that direction, anyway.”

Godolphin got their second win of the day when Real World, with Marco Ghiani in the saddle, impressed in the Royal Hunt Cup.

The Saeed bin Suroor-trained horse raced from the far side before breaking clear of the group from two furlongs out to come home more than four lengths ahead of Astro King in the colours of Dubai businessman Saeed Suhail.

Aidan O’Brien’s Love scooped the day’s biggest prize in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes to claim her fifth Group 1 prize.

Ryan Moore made all on the four-year-old Galileo filly to win from Audarya by a three-quarter length.

“She is going to come on a lot for the run,” O’Brien said. “We're over the moon with her. She's very genuine and brave.

“Ryan Moore was trying to win and do the right thing for her. All the races are open to her. The King George, the Eclipse, all of them.”