Royal Ascot: Gosden, Dettori loaded for opening day

Trainer John Gosden and jockey Frankie Dettori don’t have to await Enable’s intended return next month to have a memorable day of English racing.

With Enable, the two-time Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner, back at Gosden’s Newmarket stables, the trainer and Dettori look loaded for Day 1, Tuesday, of the 2020 Royal Ascot meeting.

Dettori and Gosden at times seemed ubiquitous during the 2019 European flat season and they partner up on several live chances on Ascot’s first program, including Terebellum in the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes.

Typically carded as the meeting’s first race, the Queen Anne, a straight-course mile, is the second race in this spectator-free Royal Ascot season following the Buckingham Palace Handicap, which kicks off the seven-race card at 8:15 a.m. Eastern. You can watch and bet on all the Royal Ascot action at DRFBets.com and find more coverage and handicapping opinions at Daily Racing Form’s special Royal Ascot webpage on DRF.com.

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The Queen Anne is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Win and You’re In race offering automatic entry and fees-paid travel to the BC Mile at Keeneland this fall.

Gosden and Dettori actually have the early betting favorite for the Buckingham Palace, a horse named Daarik, and Terrebellum stands a very good chance of taking down the Queen Anne, featured race on a card that includes the Group 1 King’s Stand, the Group 2 Prince Edward, and the Group 2 Duke of Cambridge.

Terebellum gets a three-pound weight break as a 4-year-old filly facing males, seems drawn well enough in post 8, and ought to handle course conditions even if rain in the forecast materializes. The Ascot course was listed as good as of Monday. Terrebellum might really prefer good or even firm ground but has won over a soft course and only seems less effective when the going gets even more testing.

Campaigned by Godolphin, she is lightly raced, with just five starts, and ambitiously spotted facing males in only her second Group 1 attempt. The first, in the Prix de l’Opera last fall, came over a sodden course where Terebellum appeared to struggle.

Terebellum only has raced over 1 1/4 miles in her five cbut the Ascot straight mile plays longer than the bare distance and this filly, by Sea the Stars, has ample pace to stay in touch with whomever sets the tempo. Her race history suggests tactical versatility while her winning performance June 6 in the Prix Dahlia, where she was into the bridle and loaded from the start, suggests a filly who has improved from age 3 to 4.

Circus Maximus, Ryan Moore riding for Aidan O’Brien and a partnership between Coolmore and the Niarchos Family, heads the antepost betting market and will probably be favored in Queen Anne pari-mutuel pools. Circus Maximus won the Group 1 St. James’s Palace stakes around one turn at Royal Ascot in 2019 and captured another one-turn Group 1 Mile, the Prix du Moulin de Longchamp, before concluding his 3-year-old campaign with a solid fourth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. The Mile’s one-two finishers, Uni and Got Stormy, blew past Circus Maximus with a quarter-mile to run, both fillies far fleeter than bruising Circus Maximus, but a straight, stiff mile like the Queen Anne probably better suits this colt.

Neither Fox Chairman or Duke of Hazard has raced since last summer but both ended 2019 on a high note, and Fox Chairman in particular, a 4-year-old with only four starts, has ample latitude for improvement.

Immediately following the Queen Anne, Gosden and Dettori are right back in action with favored Frankly Darling in the Group 2 Ribblesdale. Frankly Darling, clearly favored Sunday with overseas bookmakers, has raced only twice but scored a five-length Newcastle all-weather win in her June 1 prep for Tuesday’s 1 1/2-mile tilt. The Frankel filly is owned by Gosden’s old client, Anthony Oppenheimer, who campaigned Arc winner Golden Horn.

In the Duke of Cambridge Stakes for older fillies and mares over one mile, Gosden runs the well backed Nazeef, with Jim Crowley riding, while Dettori runs against him here with Wasmya, a France-based 4-year-old with upside who might appreciate good ground.

Battaash played second fiddle to Blue Point in the last two renewals of the King’s Stand, a straight five-furlong dash, but with Blue Point retired and nothing close to a comparable rival among Tuesday’s entries, Battaash is decidedly odds-on to win his first start since a dismal showing Oct. 6 in the Prix l’Abbaye de Longchamp. Battaash proved hapless on that very soft course but with anything close to his typical form he’ll win this race. Glass Slippers, second choice in the early betting, won the Abbaye by three lengths but clearly benefited from the radical conditions.

Gosden has no entrant in the King Edward, a 1 1/2-mile contest for 3-year-olds, while Dettori rides Arthur’s Kingdom, second string for O’Brien behind heavily favored Mogul.

Mogul, a 3-year-old Galileo colt who’s a brother to the top-level 4-year-old Japan, was fourth making his 2-year-old finale in the Group 1 Vertem Futurity, a race that had to be moved from turf to the all-weather track at Newcastle because of extremely wet conditions. Mogul hasn’t raced beyond one mile, but clearly has the pedigree to stay and become a major 3-year-old this summer.