The Derby’s loss looks like being Royal Ascot’s gain as the 2000 Guineas winner, Ruling Court, is set to be re-routed here by Godolphin after he was a late withdrawal at Epsom on ground deemed unsuitable. For over 1m4f, anyway, given the stamina concerns.
Formerly known as the King’s Stand, again we look set to have an international flavour with last season’s Australian-trained winner, Asfoora, heading the ante-post market.
Aidan O’Brien is the most successful trainer in the race’s long history with 10 winners but, outside of the Chesham Stakes over 7f, he prefers to get two runs into two-year-olds that he sends to Royal Ascot.
In the Queen Anne we have the strongest trends race of the 35 to take place at Royal Ascot to kick off the five-day extravaganza. Sixteen of the last 22 winners had already struck at Group 1 level and it is the Lockinge Stakes that has been the key guide having featured 25 Queen Anne winners since 1980 including Palace Pier and Baaeed who completed the double in two of the last four seasons.
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Spearheaded by a pair of top-class milers in Field Of Gold and Lead Artist, we get the latest on John & Thady Gosden’s Royal Ascot team.
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Chris So hopes rising star Hong Lok Golf (127lb) can eventually ascend to elite company after the gelding’s impressive victory in the HK$3.12 million Class 2 Cheung Sha Handicap (1650m) at Happy Valley on Wednesday night (11 June).
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One of Australia’s most decorated horsemen, James Cummings will join Hong Kong’s trainers’ ranks in 2026/27. Cummings, 37, hails from one of Australian horse racing’s most illustrious families as a fourth-generation trainer and has enjoyed phenomenal success in his own right.
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George Boughey has yet to open his Group account at Royal Ascot but is hoping that statistic can be erased in the King Charles III Stakes on the opening day when Believing looks to take her exalted career to new heights.
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Team Hannon’s Royal Ascot horses are headlined by Rosallion, the 2024 St James’s Palace Stakes hero who tops Queen Anne Stakes betting.
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The Middleham maestro has the ante-post favourites for the Queen Mary and Albany respectively as he bids for another successful Royal Ascot raid in 2025.
