James McDonald does what he does best at Royal Ascot
Michael Guerin • June 19th, 2025 9:28 AM • 3 min read
New Zealand’s greatest jockey James McDonald reminded the racing world why he is the best at Royal Ascot overnight.
McDonald, who is predominantly based in Sydney but rides around the world more often these days, wasn’t even confirmed to ride at this week’s glamourous Royal Ascot meeting, outside London, until two weeks ago.
Because he committed to the meeting so late, he has almost no chance of getting rides on winning chances, with so many of the best Royal Ascot rides snapped up months in advance.
The mare, who won at Royal Ascot two years ago when trained in the United States, is now trained by legend John Gosden and his son Thady and came from last to blow her rivals away for McDonald.
She was one of a handful of late pick up rides for McDonald for the Qatar-owned racing powerhouse Wathnan Racing, whose racing bosses offered McDonald rides on some of their horses this week that couldn’t be ridden by their regular stable rider James Doyle.
While nobody doubted Crimson Advocate’s talent she wasn’t expected to beat Cinderella’s Dream, one of the hottest favourites of the week and for much of the 1600m third race on the card it didn’t look like she would.
But after McDonald was able to get Crimson Advocate to settle the pair unleashed a dazzling finish for McDonald to record the fifth Royal Ascot victory of her career.
It was the sort of win, the style of ride, that on the biggest stage reminded the most serious players in world racing why the Kiwi rider sits so far ahead of his rivals in the rankings for big-race jockeys, a title he won last season.
It was also justification for McDonald to travel around the world to ride for just three days and with few confirmed rides.
A Royal Ascot winner for Wathnan Racing and the all-powerful Gosden stable is the level of victory that can open doors to bigger UK success, a palatable possibility as so many of their best races are run during the Australian Group 1 off-season.
“As many people know I wasn’t even coming to this meeting a few weeks ago and I was really going to hate not being here,” McDonald said.
“So to be here, riding high class horses like this mare and winning like that, it really means a lot to me.
“I love it here, it is special. There is nothing else like it.”
With rides like the one on Crimson Advocate only confirmed days ago McDonald had to be a quick study to get up to speed on her form and that of almost every other ride he has had this week.
“Coming into it, the questions were whether she would relax well enough and if she ran a stiff mile, but she ticked all those boxes,” he said.
“She relaxed and gave me a beautiful ride. She was fantastic.
“She was bubbling underneath me the whole way and, the further the race went, the more she actually gave me.
“When William [Buick] committed a furlong and a half from home, she was still on the bridle. She accelerated so quickly. She obviously has speed over five furlongs and, now she is stretching out over a mile, it bodes well for the future.”
McDonald will wrap his Royal Ascot week riding on Thursday (overnight Friday NZ time) and will partner outsider Dubai Future in the historic Ascot Gold Cup.
The next three days also sees Auckland-based syndication company Go Racing with horses racing each day, a huge accomplishment at a Royal Ascot meeting.
