Australian sprinter Merchant Navy has provided Bendigo’s Aldridge family with a sporting memory of a lifetime.

Merchant Navy won Saturday night’s Diamond Jubilee Stakes at the famous Royal Ascot meeting in England.

Bendigo businessman and racing enthusiast Ted Aldridge part-owns Merchant Navy and he was trackside at Royal Ascot with his wife Joanne and son Daniel to watch the speed machine defeat some of the best sprinters in the world.

Ridden by Ryan Moore, Merchant Navy held off French raider City Light by a short head. American runner Bound For Nowhere finished third.

Originally trained by Ciaron Maher in Melbourne, Merchant Navy won the Group One Coolmore Stakes at Flemington last spring.

The horse was sent to the powerful Aidan O’Brien stable in the UK earlier this year and has thrived.

He won a Group Two event in Ireland first-up before Saturday night’s impressive win at Royal Ascot.

O'Brien said Merchant Navy could run in the July Cup before he returned to Australia for stud duties at Coolmore.

"He was travelling very well and we knew looking at him that Ryan was very happy on him," O’Brien said.

"I think Ryan was hoping not to get there (the front) too early on him and then he got a little bit of a bump and Ryan said it took him a bit of time to re- balance.

"We thought it was an impossible task for him here as he was 12lb (5kg) worse off than he would have been in Australia.

"He's being treated as a four-year-old here and he's really a three-year-old. I came here prepared that he couldn't win, reading what everyone was saying.

"The plan was that he'd run here and then go back to Australia, as I think there's a lot of mares waiting on him there."