Heavy rain tipped the balance in favour of the bookmakers at Ascot yesterday as Pink Cristal, Smart Savannah and Brutal Fantasy revelled in the mud to score surprise victories in the feature races. Just 24 hours after Russian Revival bounced off a firm surface to land a bigrace gamble, nearly an inch of rain turned the ground soft and the odds against punters.
A waterlogged crossing on the round course forced the abandonment of the mile-and-a-quarter handicap and caused the feature Bovis Homes Valiant Stakes to be switched to the straight mile.
And Group One Nassau Stakes third Diamond White was unable to justify 2 to 1 favouritism on the revised course, going down by a length and a half to the Henry Candy-trained 11 to 1 shot Pink Cristal who was having her first race since winning a maiden at Salisbury in early-June.
"We thought the rain would help her as she has always gone well at home with cut in the ground," said the winning trainer's assistant David Pinder, whose boss was at Leopardstown saddling Group Three winner Gorse.
"It was a bit too firm for her last time and we have been waiting for the ground. Her half-brother Crystal Hearted was best with cut in the ground.
"She got the mile well, the first two have pulled a long way clear here and she is a nice filly."
Darragh O'Donohoe was banned for two days (August 20th and 21st) for adjudged careless riding on Samut, who interfered with Out Line around two furlongs from home.
Candy was convinced Pink Cristal needed soft ground and had earmarked her for Deauville last Thursday until electing to gamble on the weather changing at Ascot.
But Roger Charlton and Paul Howling were caught unawares by the victories of their Smart Savannah and Brutal Fantasy respectively.
Charlton thought Smart Savannah would be unsuited by the soft ground and had been tempted to add to the 14 withdrawals from five surviving races.
But he let the 11 to 1 shot, unplaced in four previous starts this year, take his chance in the Mail On Sunday Millennium Mile Handicap Qualifier and saw the three-year-old beat Pas de Memoires (8 to 1) and Alboostan (6 to 1 favourite) by a length and a quarter and three and a half lengths.
