Wathnan Racing buys London Gold Cup winner Lost Boys for Ascot bid

Wathnan Racing has gone shopping for immediate Royal Ascot ammunition again, and Lost Boys is the latest prize. The London Gold Cup winner has been bought out of David Menuisier’s yard and will stay with the trainer, with the Golden Gates Handicap over 1m2f now the clear target at Royal Ascot, which runs from June 16 to June 20, 2026.

It is the sort of move that says as much about ambition as it does about horseflesh. Lost Boys is not some long-range project being tucked away for later. He is a May-foaled son of Night Of Thunder with a record that already matters: three wins from five starts, a debut third behind Bow Echo as a 2-year-old, then a Sandown handicap success on his comeback before he stepped up again at Newbury.

That Newbury performance was the one that made the market move. In the 2026 Trade Nation London Gold Cup Handicap, a Class 2 3-year-old handicap over 1m2f with a winner’s prize of £51,540, Lost Boys won by a head after surviving a stewards’ enquiry. He was always travelling well, and the fight to the line did not dent the impression that there was more in the tank than the bare margin suggested.

Wathnan’s racing adviser Richard Brown said it was hard not to be hugely impressed by the colt’s latest performance, adding that Lost Boys cruised through the race with enthusiasm before quickening well when it mattered. Menuisier has already made the next step plain enough, saying the horse will go for the Golden Gates Handicap and that the yard will let him tell them what comes next. That is the language of a stable trying to balance patience with the temptation to strike while the Ascot window is open.

The buy also fits Wathnan’s broader pattern. Brown helped source the operation’s first Royal Ascot winners, Gregory and Courage Mon Ami, in 2023, and Wathnan later said he had also uncovered all four of its 2024 Royal Meeting winners. The stable then reported five winners at Royal Ascot 2025, and it had already added other progressive horses in the build-up to this year’s meeting, including Protection Act and The Prettiest Star.

Lost Boys adds to that stack of live options. He had already beaten Poseidon’s Warrior at Haydock, and that rival is now rated 108, which only sharpens the case that Lost Boys is still rising. As one report put it, “he’s got bags of upside.” For a major owner with Royal Ascot firmly in its sights, that is exactly the profile worth paying for.