Quddwah won the Bet With Ascot Donation Scheme Paradise Stakes at Ascot and kept his perfect record in the end.
The four-year-old, trained by Simon and Ed Crisford, was making just his third start against older horses, but jockey William Buick perfectly timed his charge for the line, passing Docklands in the last fifty yards to win by a neck.
Before the one-mile race started, Quddwah (4-1) displayed his inexperience by refusing to go into the stalls until the handlers persuaded him to do so.
With five furlongs to go, Maljoom took the lead, but he was comfortably behind the leaders as Docklands made the early running.
In what looked to be a two-horse race, the leading pair powered ahead and made a run for home from the two-furlong marker as Docklands narrowly avoided Maljoom, who had limited room on the inside rail.
But Quddwah was lagging behind and kept getting better, managing to overtake the leader with the finish line in sight to win for the third time in a row.
Ed Crisford said: “He’s a very big horse who has been off for 11 months and we did as much as we could at home, we never took him away. I thought he would get a bit tired, but there was not much pace on and he got a lovely tow into the race – it was a lovely ride. He won at Newmarket nicely and we were due to run him at the July meeting in a Listed race, but just before he got a little issue and we had to put him away. However, he’d always shown he was a horse on the up. We put him in the Queen Anne and we’ll speak to Sheikh Ahmed and there’s the Diomed Stakes at Epsom along the way as an option. He’s a horse with ability who is learning his trade and hopefully a fun horse to have. This was only his third race and he’s still got his whole future ahead of him. He’s a very nice horse to have in the stable. It’s just getting going after a rough winter for all the horses but it’s nice to get a nice winner at Ascot.”