Animal Kingdom is to have his racing swan song in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot before taking up stud duties in Australia.
The impressive Dubai World Cup winner also holds an entry in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes over a mile-and-a-quarter (2000m) at the Royal meeting, but connections feel the one-mile contest will help promote him more as a stallion in the southern hemisphere.
The five-year-old, winner of the Kentucky Derby in 2011, is currently being housed at David Lanigan’s stables in Lambourn in preparation for Royal Ascot under the scrutiny of his trainer Graham Motion.
“We had discussed the possibility of either the Queen Anne Stakes or the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, but after walking the course, I feel the mile in the Queen Anne will afford our horse plenty of ground,” Motion said on part-owner Team Valor’s website.
“We had only considered the other race because it is run over the same mile-and-a-quarter distance as the Kentucky Derby and World Cup.
“The owners (Arrowfield Stud, Sheikh Mohammed and Team Valor International) prefer a credential for the horse at a mile and I think the uphill nature of the Ascot course will be a stiff enough test to allow his stamina to come into play.
“The mile at Ascot is closer to a mile-and-an-eighth race in America because of the layout and if Animal Kingdom were racing in America at this time, we probably would be running him over that distance.
“The Queen Anne also fits nicely into my training schedule for Animal Kingdom since we freshened him up after his trip to Dubai.”
