Royal Ascot 2022: Commonwealth Cup Stats Guide

Last year’s race

Winner: Campanelle

Jockey: L Dettori

Trainer: Wesley Ward

Owner: Stonestreet Stables Llc

Age: 3 Weight: 8st 11lbs

Starting Price: 5/1

Season Form Figures: Seasonal debut

Previous Best: 1st - Prix Morny (Group 1), Deauville (August 2020)

By Paul Jones

This will be the eighth edition of this Grade 1 race over 6f for three-year-olds which has proved to be such a hit, so race trends are only just starting to bed in hence the lack of pointers in the final summary.

Proven quality has paid so far with five of the seven winners officially rated between 114-119 beforehand (three of which were rated 117+). Golden Horde was a winning seasonal debutant in 2020, the season only starting two weeks before Royal Ascot due to Covid.

In the first year it was won by the Champion Sprinter, Muhaarar, beating the subsequent July Cup winner, Limato, into second place so a great start.

The 2016 running wasn’t quite as high quality but the winner, Quiet Reflection, went on to add the Group 1 Haydock Park Sprint and had previously won the Sandy Lane which has since featured another Commonwealth Cup winner, two seconds and a third. Rohaan beat Dragon Symbol into second last season’s Sandy Lane - the winner was then ineligible to run here being a gelding so won the Wokingham instead so he must have gone close and the runner-up passed the post in front in the Commonwealth Cup only to be disqualified. El Caballo beat Flaming Rib in this season’s Sandy Lane.

Rohaan also won after also winning the Pavilion Stakes last season, won this year by Go Bears Go. The 2017 Commonwealth Cup was considered by many to be the race of the meeting heading into Royal Ascot and it was Caravaggio that came out on top beating Harry Angel and Blue Point in a very high-class renewal. The runner-up and third had previously met in the Pavilion Stakes at the Ascot April Meeting, a trial that featured the Commonwealth Cup winner, Eqtidaar, a year later who was second in that contest.

Returning to sprinting proved to be key for Muhaarar and Advertise after they had run in a Guineas so expect a few contenders that didn’t stay a mile in various Guineas’ to line up. Perfect Power being the most likely after winning two Group 1s over 6f as a two-year-old and the Greenham over 7f but he was only seventh in the 2000 Guineas. The Cheveley Park Stakes winner, Tenebrism, could potentially be another after finishing only eighth when favourite for the 1000 Guineas and bid to give fillies a third success.

At a glance summary:

POSITIVES

Contested the Pavilion Stakes or Sandy Lane Stakes

Officially rated 114+ (117+ even better!)

Fillies

NEGATIVES

None