Racing: Mills at peace in top bracket

Epsom trainer enjoys further Ascot success with double strike at 'toffs' track' as Darley dominates in saddle

For all Terry Mills's protestations about being just a heart-of-gold working-class lad, you begin to wonder whether he has, after all, some toffs' blood in his veins, for he has done conspicuously well with his small team at this poshest of tracks. Bobzao and Mitcham have both provided him winners at the Royal meeting in years past, two weeks ago Where Or When took the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, and yesterday Peace Offering proved himself one of the best of the season's young sprinters with success in the Cornwallis Stakes.

The colt was confirming the promise he had shown his East End-born trainer, who made his fortune from the disposal of scrap, at home on the gallops before he ever raced. The surprise was not that he won here, but that he had been beaten at Folkestone on his debut two starts previously.

"He had been working very well with two of my fastest older horses, Mitcham and Funny Valentine, and we thought he was nailed on first time," said Mills. "But things didn't work out. He was too keen for his own good and then when he got to the front he hung badly. But he's grown up since then, and he'll get further than this five furlongs when he really learns to settle," added the trainer.

In the embryonic speed division, the form of this five-furlong Group Three contest is solid. Half a length second came Speed Cop, followed by Revenue and Fancy Lady, and those three horses had filled the frame behind the lightning-fast Wunders Dream in the Flying Childers Stakes at Doncaster last month.

Peace Offering initiated a double for his Epsom stable and a treble for Kevin Darley. The trainer-jockey combination scored again with Olivia Grace in the five-furlong handicap, and between times Darley drove Love Everlasting to victory in the day's other Group Three feature, the Princess Royal Stakes.

The filly, who finished second in the race 12 months ago, has been an admirable servant to the Mark Johnston stable and had to draw on all her battling qualities to reel in Bright And Clear in a tactical four-horse affair. Frankie Dettori, on the runner-up, nearly outfoxed his rivals by quickening and slowing the pace as Darley and Johnny Murtagh, on Dawana, got involved in a private joust at the back.

"It was a messy sort of race," said Johnston, "and although mine seemed to make hard work of it, it was not really her fault. The way it panned out she had to come wide and she did well to win. We wanted a Group race for her, so mission accomplished."

Johnston has reached one of his seasonal targets, the £2 million prize-money barrier, but has ceded second place on the trainers' leaderboard, and with it the position of the best in Britain, to Sir Michael Stoute. "We've won more races than anyone else," the Middleham trainer said, "but we haven't the ammunition left to overtake him or Aidan O'Brien in earnings."

The Autumn Stakes, a mile contest for juveniles, has a reputation for producing smart types – Nayef, Presenting, Beauchamp King, Dr Fong, Daliapour and Nashwan, to name a few – but the race's record is unlikely to be improved by yesterday's winner, Big Bad Bob. And in case that sounds like an unwarranted calumny about the colt, who lives up to neither of the first two parts of his name, it was the opinion of his trainer, John Dunlop.

Big Bad Bob was winning his fourth successive race, and did it in style from the front under Pat Eddery, but Dunlop has no fancy plans for him. "He's a dear little horse, not particularly well-bred but very tough. He has gone from strength to strength but I trained his dam and she was absolutely useless."

The weekend's Group One action is in France (Prix de la Forêt) and Italy (Premio Vittorio di Capua) this afternoon, with the John Gosden-trained Mount Abu bidding to repeat his victory last year at Longchamp and Godolphin's Slickly trying the same in Milan.

With Flat racing winding down, a reminder of the jump season to come takes place in the Czech Republic this afternoon with the Velka Pardubicka, the legendary, gruelling four-and-quarter-mile cross-country marathon.

Local hero Peruan, the three-time winner and second last year, tries again at the age of 14. Just one in the 19-strong field boldly goes from Britain: Celibate, trained by Charlie Mann, who rode Its A Snip to victory seven years ago.