The TWE Royal Ascot 2021 Awards

If a week ago we'd told you that our horse of the week at Royal Ascot 2021 was going to come from the Gold Cup, you'd have presumed we were about to be singing the praises of Stradivarius. However, sometimes scripts are there to be scrapped and there's one thing for sure and that's that Subjectivist didn't get the memo.

Heading into the race off the back of Group 1 victory in France and then Group 2 victory at Meydan, the Mark Johnston charge was ridden prominently for a large majority of the race before making a sensational move on the home turn which saw him take up a 10 length lead into the straight and he never gave it up to win by five lengths in rather comfortable fashion under an outstanding ride from Joe Fanning.

The red hot fav Stradivarius had simply no answer for it and he could only manage fourth.

He's now opened up as the 6/4 favourite for the Goodwood Cup with that looking likely to be his next destination with a rematch with Stradivarius looking extremely likely.

To say it's been a 12 months full of mixed emotions for Oisin Murphy woud probably be an understatement. From becoming Champion jockey to then serving a three month ban after he tested positive for cocaine, he's certainly not had it easy.

However if there's ever a place to get your career back on track then its Royal Ascot and that's exactly what he did.

After riding 11/1 shot Berkshire Shadow to victory in the Coventry Stakes, he steered 18/1 outsider Perotto to victory in the Britannia Stakes on day three but it was on day four he really came in to his own.

He was controversially denied victory on Dragons Symbol in the Commonwealth Cup after the stewards decided to overturn the result but he bounced back in style to claim a quickfire double aboard Alcohol Free and then Quickthorn.

It was a nervy finish on Saturday but he wrapped up the jockeys title with a typically hard fought ride on King Power Racing's Fox Tales in the Golden Gates Stakes.

We all love a good comeback story and that's exactly what we got with Murphy at this years Royal Ascot.

Despite losing the trainers title on a count back, our trainer of the week award at Royal Ascot this year goes to Andrew Balding.

When you take in to consideration he saddles just one SP fav from his 23 runners over the five days, for him to finish the festival with the joint most winners is a pretty commendable feat.

His first win came with Murphy on board in the Coventry Stakes with Berkshire Shadow on day one and he then backed that up with a double on Friday with Sandrine and Alcohol Free doing the business for the Newbury based trainer.

He teamed up with Murphy once again for his final winner of the week with Fox Tales in the Golden Gates Stakes to top off what was a terrific for him. If you'd backed the four fold as an acca you would have got odds of around 9,944/1 from their SPs, pretty impressive!