SHA TIN SELECTIONS
(Sunday, June 20, 2021)

Brought back to open the meeting last year after its services were not required when a race had to make way to incorporate the Commonwealth Cup into the meeting in 2015, this 7f all-aged handicap is now run as the final race in Thursday for its 15th running.

From those first 14 runnings I would argue that it the weakest trends handicap of the meeting (bar the races introduced last year and new handicaps this year of course) with winners coming from many ages and all over the handicap so we are very thin on pattern-based angles.

A handicap for 3yos over 1m4f, Aidan O’Brien saddled the 1-2-3 in 2019 which was a nice way for him to break his duck in the race. However, it is Mark Johnston that leads the way with six successes and he has also supplied six close-up placed runners, the latest being last year with his big Ascot Gold Cup hope, Subjectivist.

Usually featuring approximately 30 three-year-olds (22 last year to assist with social distancing), the majority of which are unexposed and from top yards, for my money the Britannia Stakes is the most competitive (though not impossible) three-year-old handicap of the season.

Stradivarius is set to start favourite to emulate Yeats and win his fourth Gold Cup. There have been 18 dual Gold Cup winners but only Sagaro, Yeats and Stradivarius have won it more than twice.
 

Back to normal for the Ribblesdale this season as last year it was an Oaks trial with Epsom put back a month due to Covid. It is a Group 2 where Oaks runners have a pretty good record given how few fillies contested both prizes turning out again relatively quickly (seven wins since 1997). 

Back to normal this season taking place before the Derby so last year’s race turned into a trial for Epsom. Prior to last year’s contest, two of the previous three winners contested a Derby as Hunting Horn finished sixth in the Prix du Jockey Club and Benbatl ran fifth in the Derby at Epsom. The 2011 winner, Pisco Sour, also contested the Derby.

Pearlman has won once in 10 starts, in a maiden race on the synthetic track at Dundalk Racecourse in Ireland in April 2019.

Last year, Pearlman was moved to Australia. Pearlman resumed racing earlier this year, and was beaten in three starts in April and May. There are signs the losing streak could end, perhaps as soon as on Friday in a handicap at 1 1/2 miles at Geelong Racecourse outside of Melbourne.

After the Coventry, the Norfolk Stakes is the best two-year-old race at Royal Ascot for punters to get really stuck into with nine of the last 18 runnings going the way of the favourite or second-favourite. In winning as the 5/1 second-favourite two years ago, A’Ali became the first maiden to win the Norfolk in 29 years having finished second on his debut at Ripon.

The Kentucky-based filly Campanelle will be favored to win Friday’s Group 1 Commonwealth Cup for 3-year-old sprinters at Royal Ascot in England on the basis of a brilliant sprint campaign in Europe last summer and the presence of top jockey Frankie Dettori and trainer Wesley Ward, who focuses on the Royal Ascot meeting each June.

What is missing for Campanelle is a prep race. Campanelle has not started since a fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Keeneland last November, her only loss in four starts and her lone start at a mile.