Sheikha Hissa's Hukum victorious at Ascot

Hukum, in the Shadwell silks and in the presence of team principal Sheikha Hissa, produced a mighty run to land the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on Saturday.

Trained by Owen Burrows and ridden by Jim Crawley, the six-year-old son of Sea The Stars featured in an epic battle to the line to pip Westover and Rob Hornby by a head to clinch his second prize at the highest level.

King Of Steel finished a further four-and-a-half lengths down in third while Auguste Rodin, the English and Irish Derby winner, ran well below expectations before getting pulled up on the turn for home.

Hukum is a brother to Shadwell’s star miler Baaeed. He won the Coronation Cup, his first Group 1 prize, in June last year and the connections had considered retiring him after he was off the track with a serious injury after that race.

He returned in May to beat the 2022 Derby winner Desert Crown in the Group 3 Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown before heading to Ascot on Saturday.

“I've always believed in him and even last year I said to Owen this could be a King George horse - he's out of his brother's shadow now,” Crawley said at the post-race television interview.

“It's a great training performance by Owen because he was off a year and in fairness to Sheikha Hissa, she persisted with him to bring him back into training. It would've been very easy to retire him as a full brother to Baaeed. She had faith and it's great, that was something special.

“Westover got first run at me but it gave me something to aim at. I had a nice position, I got onto the back of Westover turning in and I just had to hope that somebody didn't come out of the pack. In fairness to the second he didn't lie down, he kept coming back.”

Angus Gold,