Circus Maximus was cut back from longer distances to a mile and gave trainer Aidan O’Brien and jockey Ryan Moore their second big-race win on opening day of the 2019 Royal Ascot meeting by winning the Group 1 St. James’s Palace Stakes.

Earlier on the card, 2-year-old Arizona won the Group 2 Coventry stakes for Moore and O’Brien.

Blue Point confirmed his status as one of the best sprinters in the world by winning the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes at Ascot on Tuesday for the second year in a row.

Just as in 2018, Blue Point defeated top-class sprinter Battaash in the five-furlong, straight course King’s Stand. The margin of victory fell from 1 ¾ lengths a year ago to 1 ¼ lengths this time, but there was no doubt who was the best sprinter in the King’s Stand.

Six-year-old Lord Glitters won his first Group 1 race by rallying from last to nip Beat the Bank in the Queen Anne Stakes on Tuesday, the first race of the 2019 Royal Ascot meeting in England.

The turf at Ascot was drying and upgraded to “good” on Monday as any real chance of Stradivarius losing the Gold Cup on Thursday’s card at Royal Ascot began evaporating.

John Gosden, who trains Stradivarius for breeder Bjorn Nielsen, expressed concern early this week over wet conditions for Stradivarius, but anything like the ground on offer Monday would likely send the horse to his second straight win in the 2 ½-mile Gold Cup. While there is little appetite in North America for true staying races, the Group 1, $627,228 Gold Cup is one of Royal Ascot’s most coveted prizes.

Among them, the eight runners in Wednesday’s Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in England have won 29 stakes, including nine Group 1 or Grade 1 races.

Yet, the two leading contenders – the 4-year-old fillies Magical and Sea of Class – are best known for races they lost narrowly in the last year. Magical, the 9-5 favorite as of Monday, was second to Enable in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs last November. Sea of Class (11-4) was second in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in Paris last October, also to Enable, in her most recent start.

They don’t mess around at Royal Ascot. Once the preliminaries – like placing bets on the color of the outfit in which the queen will arrive in the royal carriage to inaugurate the festivities – have been completed, the five-day meeting begins with a bang, the $755,500 Queen Anne Stakes, the first of three Group 1s among six races on the Royal meet’s opening card and a Win and You're In race for the Breeders' Cup Mile.

Channel got a perfect trip under Pierre-Charles Boudot and posted a mild upset in the Group 1 Prix de Diane, the French Oaks, on Sunday at Chantilly.

Boudot tucked Channel right in behind the leaders throughout much of the 1 5/16-mile Prix de Diane, waiting until about 400 meters remained before switching outside the pace-disputing Wonderment to give his mount a clear look at daylight. The diminutive Channel responded gamely to heavy urging, opened a lead with a furlong to run, and had just enough in the tank to stave off a late surge from Commes, winning by a head.

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There will be an American presence on each of the five days of racing at the Royal Ascot meeting in England, which runs from Tuesday through Saturday.

Wesley Ward is preparing 10 horses for stakes, and Joe Orseno has one. The U.S. horses range from veteran sprinters to lightly raced juveniles.

There are eight Group 1 races through the week, the highlight of the British flat-racing season. Each card begins at 9:30 a.m. Eastern and includes just six races.

Siyarafina will cement her position as the leading 3-year-old filly in France if she can remain undefeated as a heavy favorite Sunday at Chantilly in the Group 1 Prix de Diane.

France’s version of the Oaks, contested over about 1 5/16 miles, has long been the goal for Siyarafina, whose three wins to start her career are a maiden race, a conditions race, and the Group 1 Prix Saint Alary over 1 1/4 miles on May 26 at Longchamp.