Royal Zabeel gives owners more glory in Great St Wilfrid
By Racing TV
Last Updated: Sat 15 Aug 2026
Royal Zabeel provided his owners The Horse Watchers with a second successive win in the £100,000 William Hill/MND Association Great St Wilfrid at Ripon.
Successful with Intervention 12 months ago, the syndicate which includes the TV presenting brothers Martin and Chris Dixon, once again teamed up with trainer Mick Appleby to win the prestigious sprint handicap.
A Listed winner on the all-weather in November, he has been running in all the major handicaps and looked one of the class acts in the race along with Richard Hannon’s Aramram.
Aramram was one of only four to go on the far side while Jason Watson took the decision to go with the majority and it paid off as Royal Zabeel (17-2) beat I’m Next by two and three-quarter lengths, with Lord Roxby third.
Watson said: “He does have a tendency to lug towards the main bulk of the field so it made sense to go with them.
“There has been a bit of a bias towards that side and obviously he was one of the class angles in the race anyway.
“It was pretty straightforward. He’s just a good horse.”
Chris Dixon said: “We were going to run whatever but I suppose Aramram running meant we didn’t quite have to shoulder quite as much weight and after the race I did quickly think it might have helped us.
“We felt he was the class horse of the race but we were a little worried about the draw (five) – even though when Intervention won he went the other way.
“The thing with him is if you watch his last two races in the Bunbury Cup and Wokingham, he’s been in the smaller group but he has spent the whole race lugging the other way to join the bigger group. He can lug left.
“So stall five was a big negative with that in mind but we had a chat with Jason this morning and it’s worked out well.
“He’s ok in top end handicaps and while the Great St Wilfrid is a big race, it doesn’t quite have the depth of some of them so there is a bigger spread of ability.
“He’s not in the Ayr Gold Cup, he doesn’t like soft ground and there’s quite a nice programme of Listed races for him, he’s a Listed winner.
“If he’s fine on Monday he’ll be entered at Newmarket next week and then we’ll look at an all-weather programme for him.”
Sponsors William Hill gave all profits from the race to the MND Association.
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