125-1 debut winner: 'I saw she was a huge price - I thought they must know something we don't because we thought she was good'

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Debutante Perfect Part caused a 125-1 shock in the Hilary Needler Trophy, a race her local owner Keith Brown had been trying to win for 50 years.

She cost just £10,000 when bought privately at the breeze-up sales in April and was taking on seven previous winners in a conditions event that is a traditional trial for Royal Ascot two-year-olds.

Yet despite being sent off the complete outsider of the field under Cam Hardie – drifting out from an opening 66-1 – she put her better-fancied rivals in their place, scoring by half a length from 7-2 favourite Maw Lam.

"I knew she was fast," said Brown, who is in the property business and is based just eight miles away in Swanland. "We had her out of the stalls two or three times in the last couple of weeks and she came out of them like an absolute rocket. 

"I saw she was a huge price, I thought they must know something we don't! We thought she was good."

Owner Keith Brown talks to jockey Cam Hardie after Perfect Part's success Credit: David Carr

Brown did not back the Brian Ellison-trained winner and said: "I don't gamble – I'll start betting when I see a bookie riding about on his bike. They've all got bigger cars than me so I'll leave it alone."

He added: "It's a real thrill. I've always wanted to win this race. I've been racing here for 50 years and must have had a dozen runners in it and it's a good race to win."

Brown's best previous horses have included Queen Elizabeth II Stakes second Top Notch Tonto, who was bought for just €3,000 as a foal, and he was delighted to have found another bargain.

"She breezed brilliantly but was a late foal and she hasn't got the size," Brown said. "I think that's why I got her so cheap. It was mitigating circumstances."

Shareholder books royal trip

Shareholder, who cost €460,000 at the Arqana breeze-up sale last month, is 4-1 second favourite for the Norfolk Stakes with Paddy Power after making a winning debut for Karl Burke, who has leading contenders for virtually all of the two-year-old races at Royal Ascot.

It was only by a short head that the 6-4 favourite pipped Moving Force, who was conceding 7lb, in the bet365 Two Year Old Trophy and his trainer admitted: "I was holding my breath in the last furlong and he did a lot wrong early on. He was nice and relaxed beforehand but when it was business time and the gates opened he was very keen.

"He's a breeze-up horse – they're taught to go two furlongs flat out. We have to re-educate him and we've only had him for three weeks. He came in great condition but he wasn't eating as well as I wanted him to and I just hope now he's got that out of the way he'll come back on his food.

"The idea was to come here and he'd tell us whether he's good enough to go to Ascot. He's certainly done that, it's just a question of how he comes out of it."

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