Previous Royal Ascot form has been a useful pointer as 12 of the last 25 winners had been placed at worst at this meeting before. In fact, both of last season’s 1-2 had placed at the meeting the previous year and the runner-up, Dream Of Dreams, is trying to make it third time lucky in this race having been touched off in photo finishes for the last two years.

When successful aged five in 2019, Defoe ended the long sequence of winning four-year-olds that has stretched out to 11 runnings. Jupiter Island is the only winner over the age of five since 1905.

Fanny Logan resumed normal service last season for four-year-olds and in victory she became the first successful filly/mare since Stanerra back in 1983 who was winning here just three days after also taking the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

Pinatubo was giving Godolphin their third win in the Chesham in 2019 and they have another likely big player in New Science after he impressed on debut at Yarmouth. Godolphin also ran their Derby winner, Masar, in this race when finishing third in 2017 so the Chesham has featured two domestic Classic winners in its last five runnings (Churchill being the other) so it has become a much more fashionable race of late.

The one-mile Poule d’Essai des Pouliches, France’s 1000 Guineas, was too short for Philomene, but Sunday’s Prix de Diane, the French Oaks, could be just right.

Only eight programs remain in the long Hong Kong racing season, and Sunday’s card at Sha Tin is a good one.

Two Group 3 handicaps – the Premier Plate over 1,800 meters and the Premier Cup over 1,400 meters – highlight a 10-race card that includes a competitive Class 2 handicap and an appearance by the very promising 3-year-old Killer Bee in a Class 3 handicap.

From his career debut with a fourth-place finish in a five-furlong stakes in May 2020, Better Kick has been held in high regard by Australian trainer Steve Richards.

So far, the gelding’s potential has not been realized, with one win in five starts. Better Kick, unraced since late November, starts in a five-furlong handicap at Bendigo Racecourse, north of Melbourne, on Sunday.

The Kentucky-based filly Campanelle maintained her perfect record in major European stakes when she was rightfully promoted from second to first in Friday’s Group 1 Commonwealth Cup for 3-year-old sprinters at Royal Ascot.

Campanelle finished second by a head to Dragon Symbol, who was disqualified and placed second for drifting to the outside and bumping with Campanelle in the six-furlong race on a straightaway course.

This is the second running of this 5f handicap for three-year-olds rated 0-105 won in convincing style last season by the 6/4 favourite (in a 21-runner handicap), Art Power, who ran here off a mark of 97 rather than contest the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup.

Our ideal contender will be a four or five-year-old arriving here off the back of a victory and drawn in double figures - three strong trends for this handicap over 1m4f for older horses. Baghdad hit all the square on the head two years ago when justifying favouritism giving Mark Johnston a fourth win in this race.

Sir Michael Stoute has saddled six winners and three runners-up from his last 18 runners and the majority view was that his Kings Fete (close-up third) would have won in 2016 but for being squeezed up.

This handicap for three-year-old fillies over a mile has been part of Royal Ascot since 2002 but it isn’t that strong a stats race. For the fourth year it is being run as a standard handicap rather than a Listed handicap so to all intents and purposes, it is basically now the fillies’ Britannia Stakes.