'He should be thereabouts' - Apollo One out to cap Charalambous achievement

It is a notable feat when you can claim to have bred, owned and trained a Royal Ascot contender, and that is exactly what Peter Charalambous can do with Wokingham Stakes runner Apollo One.

A three-time winner on the track for Charalambous, who trains in Newmarket in partnership with James Clutterbuck, Apollo One failed to find any buyers when offered at Tattersalls Book 3 in 2019, but the four-year-old has had the last laugh in a productive 15-race career for his connections.

He was a winner on his debut at the July course, was then third in the Group 3 Solario Stakes and signed off his two-year-old season with a ready victory in a conditions race at Salisbury.

He won the Listed Spring Cup at Lingfield on his first start at three, since when he has kept good company and added bits and pieces of prize-money to his haul.

The gelding races off a career-low mark of 98 in the Wokingham on Saturday, while promising apprentice Benoit de la Sayette claims a handy 5lb.

The son of Equiano was bred under the banner of the pcracing.co.uk syndicate, which has six broodmares including Boonga Roogeta, who was an 11-time winner on the track for the Charalambous yard and is now the dam of two winners including Apollo One.

Charalambous said of her first foal Giorgius: "He was by Nathaniel and he looked like a three-year-old so he was sold to Italy [to Francesca Turri for 20,000gns in 2018], where he won three times from a mile and a half to a mile and six."

His half-brother has twice made the short journey to Park Paddocks, most recently when bought back for 250,000gns at the Tattersalls August Sale last year, while he had also been a vendor buyback, though for the significantly smaller sum of 3,500gns, two years earlier.

Charalambous said: "Apollo One went to Tattersalls as a yearling but nobody really wanted him so we got him back.

"He looked a sharp, early two-year-old, which he's proved to be, while we've also got his Lethal Force half-brother who is called Space Trooper and is in full training now.

"Most of the horses who run under the PCR banner are homebreds; we have two two-year-olds including a Mayson colt out of one of our mares in Kalon Brama, and they should be set to run in the next six to eight weeks."

The faith in Apollo One has been repaid. Aside from gaining bold black type in the Spring Cup last March, when beating subsequent dual Group winner Megallan, he was just a neck behind Wokingham favourite Blackrod in a valuable heritage handicap last July.

Charalambous, who reported that Boonga Roogeta has a foal at foot by Darley's first-season sire Harry Angel, is optimistic about Apollo One's chances in the big sprint handicap, for which he was a general 33-1 chance on Friday.

He said: "On his form with the favourite he should be there or thereabouts - and aside from Blackrod, his form stacks up pretty well against Popmaster and two or three others who are shorter in the betting. Hopefully he should run a big race."

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