'If you pay 36,000gns for a Royal Ascot favourite you haven't done too bad' - Kubler keen on Hunt Cup hope Astro King

Daniel Kubler seems to be growing in confidence that the 36,000gns he shelled out for Astro King can prove money well spent at Royal Ascot.

Formerly with Sir Michael Stoute, he is vying for favouritism at around the 10-1 mark for the Royal Hunt Cup on Wednesday week. The six-year-old was second in the race in 2021 and fourth 12 months ago.

Kubler, who trains in partnership with wife Claire, said on Sunday: "It's exciting. It's difficult for us to go out and get horses to compete at this level. When you see you're top of the ante-post betting it's a different feeling to being 33-1, but I'm looking forward to it and since York, where he had his first run for us, everything has gone well.

"He did his last piece of really strong work yesterday morning, which went great, and he's fine this morning."

Astro King was owned by Saeed Suhail, but now races for Graham Johnson, Norman Carter, Howard 'Lofty' Lofthouse and Kubler's parents-in-law Gary and Lesley Middlebrook.

Daniel and Claire KublerCredit: Edward Whitaker

The joint-trainer added: "We went to the sales looking for horses and had bought Percy's Lad, who had a similar profile, the year before for a similar amount.

"We felt Astro King was a bit more obvious as he was fourth in the Hunt Cup last season, when he had only two bad runs and one was on very soft ground in the Balmoral.

"You always take a chance when you buy a horse like this, but he was five and some people look for something younger. If you pay 36,000gns for a horse and end up with the favourite for the Hunt Cup, you haven't done too bad. We thought we'd have to pay a bit more for him."

Richard Kingscote is set to partner Astro King, and Kubler said: "Our paths first crossed when we worked for Roger Charlton years ago and I remember as an apprentice he couldn't do the weight on a horse who won a fairly decent handicap. He'd been riding it and was frustrated because it would have been a good winner, but his response was to spend the afternoon working on his fitness on the mechanical horse. 

"He's ridden loads of winners for us and when he was really busy with Tom Dascombe it was hard to get him. Sir Michael Stoute is his first call, but it's fewer runners so he's more available and he'd be our first choice more or less."

Don't Tell Claire (Kensington Palace) and Percy's Lad (Buckingham Palace) are also set to represent the stable, which has had just three runners before at the royal meeting.

"You want to be competitive," said Kubler. "If you want a day out you can buy tickets – it's cheaper than entering a horse to run down the field!"

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