MARK Johnston continued his fantastic record in the Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot as Holberg stretched right away from his rivals under Joe Fanning.

The Middleham handler has now saddled five of the last nine winners of the twomile contest, with this year’s 7-1 scorer sent to the fore early on in the straight.

The three-year-old switched to the rail and really began to find top gear with two furlongs to run.

He only had to be kept up to his work in the closing stages to beat the staying-on Yankee Doodle (11-2) by four lengths.

Godolphin’s Mastery (7-1) was third, a further threequarters of a length in arrears.

Johnston said: ‘‘He’d been a good horse all winter and Joe rode him in the Glasgow Stakes at Hamilton, where we thought he was our first string.

‘‘We won the race with Parthenon but Joe missed the kick and didn’t want to hassle his stable companion for the lead. That meant we didn’t see him in his best light. Clearly the further he goes, the better he is.

‘‘I’ve not thought about the St Leger. He might be a Cup horse next year.’’ Fanning added: ‘‘They went a little bit slowly, but once they turned into the straight we came back on the bridle and he galloped all the way up the hill.

‘‘I thought he’d run better than he did at Hamilton.

‘‘But, like Mark said, the pace was slow – he could have been more impressive if they’d gone quicker today.’’ Ed Dunlop saddled his first juvenile winner at Royal Ascot as Habaayib ran out a ready victor in the six-furlong Albany Stakes.

Dunlop has had a quiet spell since the brilliant Ouija Board retired, but after winning the Britannia Stakes with Fareer 24 hours earlier, he was back in the winner’s enclosure.

The market revolved around Aidan O’Brien’s highly- regarded Lillie Langtry and Wesley Ward’s Aegean, who was supposedly the best of his crack team of two-year-olds over from America for the week.

However, the latter was struggling two furlongs out as Henry Cecil’s Chachamaidee set the pace.

Lillie Langtry began to stay on but Richard Hills smoothly brought the Royal Applause filly out to challenge and she went away from the Irish raider to win by a length and a quarter at 16-1.

‘‘We thought they would go very fast and we toyed with the idea of running her in the Queen Mary, but Richard was very adamant to come here and he has been proved right,’’ said Dunlop.

‘‘I’ve never had a two-yearold winner at Royal Ascot so it’s a great result.’’ Sir Michael Stoute and Ryan Moore have had a pretty frustrating week with Heaven Sent, Patkai, Golden Stream and Tartan Bearer all finishing second.

But Glass Harmonium provided them with a first winner in the Hampton Court Stakes on Thursday and they followed up with Perfect Stride (8-1) in the Wolferton Handicap.