The 2016 Royal Ascot meeting, as usual, begins with a bang Tuesday, with one of the meet’s most prestigious races, the Group 1 Queen Anne, the first race on the strongest top-to-bottom card of the five-day stand. And this year’s Queen Anne packs an extra kick for American racing fans since its favorite is the mighty mare Tepin, the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner who has risen during the last year to become one of the top horses in North America.

Almanzor scored an upset win in Sunday’s $1,699,350 French Derby at Chantilly Racecourse in his first start in a Group 1 race.

Ridden by Jean Bernard-Eyquem, Almanzor (19-1) closed from midpack in a field of 16 colts and fillies to win by 1 1/2 lengths over the regally bred Zarak. The French Derby is run at 1 5/16 miles on turf. Dicton, a 10-1 shot finished third, while Mekhtaal, a Group 2 winner last month at Deauville, could only finish eighth as the 9-2 favorite.

Almanzor and Mekhtaal are trained by Jean Claude-Rouget, 52, who won the race with Le Havre in 2009.

Harzand, who nearly was scratched from the race after losing a shoe, won the $1.27 million Epsom Derby on Saturday by 1 1/2 lengths over US Army Ranger.

The victory was the fifth Derby win for Harzand’s breeder and owner, the Aga Khan, but the first for trainer Dermot Weld and his longtime stable jockey, Pat Smullen.

Idaho, like US Army Ranger trained by Aidan O’Brien, finished third, giving Ireland-based runners a sweep of the top three Derby placings. The John Gosden-trained Wings of Desire, the race’s tepid antepost favorite, finished a distant fourth.

Postponed won his sixth straight race Saturday at Epsom Downs, adding the Group 1 Coronation Cup to top-level victories in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes last summer and the Sheema Classic in March and padding an increasingly gaudy résumé.

Minding overcame trouble in the early stretch to win Friday’s $684,475 English Oaks at Epsom Racecourse, becoming the first filly in 14 years to sweep the English 1000 Guineas and Oaks.

A win seemed unlikely for Minding with a quarter-mile remaining in the Group 1 Oaks at 1 1/2 miles on turf.

Minding, the 10-11 favorite, raced in traffic and was briefly last. Jockey Ryan Moore guided Minding through fillies to take the lead with a furlong remaining. Minding held her advantage late to win by 1 1/2 lengths over Architecture, a 12-1 shot.

Wings of Desire won the Dante Stakes at York for trainer John Gosden and jockey Frankie Dettori. So did Golden Horn in 2015 before his ringing triumph in the Epsom Derby. But after that, the pair diverges.

Minding can become the first filly in 14 years to sweep the English 1000 Guineas and English Oaks when she starts as a heavy favorite in the Group 1 Oaks at Epsom Racecourse south of London on Friday.

The $684,475 Oaks, run at 1 1/2 miles on turf, is part of a busy spring campaign for Minding, who is trained in Ireland by Aidan O’Brien. Minding won the English 1000 Guineas at Newmarket on May 1 and was second by a head in the Irish 2000 Guineas at The Curragh on May 22.

Makahiki avenged a loss in the Japanese 2000 Guineas in April with a nose victory over Satona Diamond in Sunday’s $3.9 million Japanese Derby at Tokyo Racecourse.

Makahiki (3-1) rallied six wide in the stretch and was fully extended to hold off Satona Diamond, a 7-2 shot who was third in the Japanese 2000 Guineas. Dee Majesty, the winner of the 2000 Guineas, finished third as the 5-2 favorite.

Dee Majesty was beaten a half-length, missing a chance to become the 24^th horse in history to win the Japanese 2000 Guineas and Japanese Derby.

Dee Majesty, the winner of the Japanese 2000 Guineas on April 17, will be favored to win his fourth consecutive race in Sunday’s $3.9 million Japanese Derby at Tokyo Racecourse.

Dee Majesty, a colt by Deep Impact, beat maidens in his third and final start of 2015 and is unbeaten in two starts this year – the Grade 3 Kyodo News Service Hai at Tokyo in February and the Grade 1 Japanese 2000 Guineas at Nakayama in April.

A Shin Hikari, a Group 1 winner in Hong Kong last December, assumed the role of favorite for the $1.09 million Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot on June 15 with an emphatic win in Tuesday’s $280,000 Prix d’Ispahan at Chantilly Racecourse in France.

Ridden by Yutaka Take, who rode Lani to a fifth-place finish in the Preakness at Pimlico last Saturday, A Shin Hikari won the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan by 10 lengths over Dariyan, winner of the Group 1 Prix Ganay at Saint-Cloud on May 1.