Gatecrashers in blue get the party started

It can be annoying when you throw a party, invite all of your friends, prepare yourself for an occasion to remember, and then have the gig gatecrashed by the big boy from the other side of the street who runs off with the biggest present on the table.

On a day when Newbury was turned maroon and white by the Qatari livery of Al Shaqab Racing, whose figurehead Sheikh Joaan Al Thani was surely entertaining high hopes of winning the self-sponsored big race with his Classic colt Galileo Gold, it was the old guard of Godolphin, the definitive big boys, who made off with the Lockinge Stakes through the efforts of the brilliant Ribchester.

Admittedly, if there's any Group 1 race in the calendar that Godolphin have always had under lock and key it's the Lockinge – Ribchester was the eighth winner of the race for the enduring racing empire that we're not really supposed to refer to as the 'boys in blue' – but in recent years it's seemed as though it's almost all they can count on.