Royal Ascot 2026: Premier meet kicks off with Notable Speech in Queen Anne

In the Queen Anne Stakes, first race of the 2025 Royal Ascot meeting, Notable Speech checked in an uncompetitive fourth as the tepid second choice. He pulled too hard during the early and middle stages and had little left for the finish.

Expectations run far higher in this year’s Queen Anne, and Notable Speech will be widely expected to launch the 2026 Royal Ascot meeting with a victory.

He’ll attract a majority of win bets in America, where Notable Speech ended his 4-year-old season last year with a comprehensive score in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. His breakthrough race, to hear jockey William Buick and trainer Charlie Appleby tell it, had come two races earlier in the Jacques Le Marois at Deauville, where Notable Speech finally fully settled for Buick, coming with a strong finish that fell just short of victory but propelled the horse to a higher level that he continues to maintain.

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One might not guess that from Notable Speech’s first start at age 5, a fourth-place finish as the heavy favorite in the Maker's Mark Mile at Keeneland in April, but Notable Speech suffered through about as bad a trip in that race as a horse can have without falling down. Back in action in the Group 1 Lockinge, a straight mile May 16 at Newbury, Notable Speech turned in his best European performance, rating mid-pack, delivering his excellent turn of foot, and storming home a two-length winner, much the best.

The second-, third-, sixth-, and seventh-place Lockinge finishers come back for more in the Queen Anne. The obvious answer to the question of who among them rates the best chance Tuesday probably is the right answer. More Thunder’s steady rise toward becoming serious Group 1 miler hit a bump, in the form of very soft turf, in the Prix de la Foret, his 2025 finale, but his runner-up finish in the Lockinge, where he came from last with an eye-catching, sustained run, stamps More Thunder with upset potential.

Second choice in Queen Anne betting on Monday, however, was Notable Speech’s stablemate Opera Ballo. The 4-year-old's 7-for-9 career record owes something to careful management, but Opera Ballo has risen steadily and might already be within range of Queen Anne glory.

Wintering in Dubai, he corkscrewed through a narrow gap in upper stretch of the Group 1 Jebel Hatta and went on to an easy 2 1/2-length score on Jan. 16. Back in England for his next out, Opera Ballo went to the lead April 24 in the Group 2 Sandown Mile. While racing unchallenged on a modest gallop clearly helped his cause, Opera Ballo finished the job with a sprint to the wire that netted a three-length victory over even-money Field of Gold, a multiple Group 1 winner. Lockinge third Zeus Olympios sat at about 8-1 in early Queen Anne betting and had beaten Opera Ballo last fall.

It would be wrong not to mention 7-1 shot Docklands, a nose winner of the 2025 Queen Anne.

The Queen Anne goes at 9:30 a.m. Eastern. What follows? More high-level weekday racing.

The Group 2 Coventry comes immediately after the Queen Anne, 22 2-year-olds entered to run five furlongs down a straight course. Aidan O’Brien has trained a record 11 Coventry winners and sends the two market leaders into Tuesday’s renewal. Great Barrier Reef has a debut win and a Group 3 score behind him but was a distant second choice behind Confucius – partly because of riding assignments.

Ryan Moore rode Great Barrier Reef in his two starts, and Wayne Lordan was aboard Confucius last out at Naas, but the two swap mounts Tuesday.

Confucius looks the flashier animal, more physically advanced than his stablemate and a horse with considerably more gate speed. Great Barrier Reef broke a step slow in his last start and didn’t pull away to win until the last half-furlong, while Confucius bulleted out of the gate and had two lengths on his rivals in five jumps. He raced in hand until the two-furlong marker and only just seemed to be figuring out what was expected of him while drawing clear to an easy win.

After the Coventry, there is another five-furlong dash, this one the Group 1 King Charles III for older horses with 26 entered to run, including Australian shippers Overpass and Asfoora. Antepost markets had Overpass the Monday favorite, bettors evidently expecting a cutback in distance from six- and seven-furlong racing to boost the chances of a horse who consistently leads and gets run down late.

The fourth race marks the end of group stakes competition – and marks a second showdown between Bow Echo and Gstaad, this one in the Group 1 St. James’s Palace, a one-turn mile.

Gstaad didn’t come anywhere close to victorious Bow Echo when they met in the 2000 Guineas, a straight Newmarket mile, and if Moore rode Bow Echo for O’Brien, rather than that legendary pair standing behind Gstaad, the odds gap between the two would be even wider.

As it stands, Bow Echo, Billy Loughnane riding for trainer George Boughey, was 4-5 on Monday, Gstaad – the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner last fall and recent Irish 2000 Guineas victor – 5-2.

Bow Echo won his three starts at age 2, capturing the Group 2 Royal Lodge before taking a winter vacation, and suggestions of elite ability at age 2 gave way to the actual thing in his 3-year-old bow, the Guineas.

Settling sweetly near the back of a 14-runner field, Bow Echo traveled like a winner from the start, cruising past rivals while asked for very little and drawing away to win by 3 3/4 lengths when Loughnane requested more. Bow Echo’s best wins came in two straight miles, and Tuesday’s contest comes around one right-handed turn, but Bow Echo had zero trouble negotiating a left-handed bend winning at Haydock Park in his second start.

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