Royal Ascot 2021 Stats Guides: Queen Anne Stakes

Possibly the strongest trends race of Royal Ascot kicks off the five-day extravaganza.

By far the best guide of the Lockinge Stakes (featured 22 Queen Anne winners since 1980) was lost last year but it looks set to provide the odds-on favourite with Palace Pier on target to follow up his ready success at Newbury. For the record, defeated horses in the Lockinge actually have a better winning record than the winner claiming 15 of the last 25 runnings but of course there are more of those.

Palace Pier is a four-year-old and they have won 21 of the last 28 runnings so that’s another big tick for the highest-rated miler in Europe. In 2019, Lord Glitters at the age of six became the oldest winner since 1976 and he looks set to take his chance as an eight-year-old after he finished fourth in the Lockinge. He was only 13th of 14 in the 2019 Lockinge before winning the Queen Anne.

Aside from being aged older than five, the other strong pattern that Lord Glitters overcame was his market position as, at 14/1, he became just the third winner since 1995 not to feature in the first four in the betting.

Like 14 of the last 18 Queen Anne winners, Palace Pier and Lord Glitters are both winners of a Group 1 as is the surprise Breeders’ Cup Mile winner, Order Of Australia, who struck at industry odds of 40/1 at Keeneland for Aidan O’Brien under a brilliant ride from Pierre-Charles Boudot. With Love expected to head to the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, the only other Group 1 winner in the race is the 2018 winner, Accidental Agent.

Aidan O’Brien has had mixed fortunes in the Queen Anne as horses with more brilliance than his four winners (Ad Valorem, Haradasun, Declaration Of War and Circus Maximus) such as Hawk Wing, George Washington and Rip Van Winkle all even failed to place. Two of his four winners were disappointing in the Lockinge which was used mainly as a prep race and his Lope Y Fernandez got stuck in the soft ground there last month.

Sir Michael Stoute could be represented by Queen Power or Regal Reality. The stable won all three runnings between 2000-2002 but none before or after. The Hannon stable have won three of the last 12 renewals but are unrepresented this time as are Godolphin who have owned the winner on eight occasions and Terebellum went within a head of making that nine last season. With Covid/Brexit difficulties, French-trained runners will be thin on the ground this week and are also unrepresented this year having won on three occasions going back to 2005.

The only three fillies/mares to remain after the forfeit stage were Love, Queen Power and Champers Elysees. Only the reigning Breeders’ Cup Mile winners, Goldikova and Tepin, have won the Queen Anne for fillies in the last 46 years.

The fact that only one seasonal debutant, Toronado, has won since Allied Forces in 1997, was irrelevant last season with Royal Ascot taking place just two weeks into the later-starting campaign but is worth noting again this year.

Postives: Contested the Lockinge Stakes, four-year-olds, trained by Richard Hannon or Aidan O’Brien.

Negatives: Failed to have won a Group 1 race, start outside the first four in the betting, aged over five.