The five-day Roy­al As­cot meet­ing kicks off to­day with the usu­al mix of com­pet­i­tive rac­ing that gives the name its truest mean­ing. There is lit­tle doubt that this is the most com­pet­i­tive five days of rac­ing though the two-day Breed­ers Cup meet­ing in the US presents the best two days of qual­i­ty rac­ing. Day five of the meet­ing which runs off on Sat­ur­day will al­so see the Pres­i­dent’s Cup tak­ing place at our own San­ta Rosa Park in Ari­ma.

Day 1 – Tues­day (June 18)

There are three Grade 1 fea­ture races on day one of the Roy­al As­cot meet­ing with the Queen Anne Stakes over 1 mile open­ing the day and the meet’s pro­ceed­ings. There are three proven Grade 1 per­form­ers in the event – Au­di­ence, a shock win­ner of the Lockinge Stakes ear­li­er in the sea­son; Big Rock, a beat­en favourite in that race but an im­pe­ri­ous win­ner of the Queen Eliz­a­beth II Stakes at this track last year – al­beit on his favoured soft ground – and Fac­teur Cheval, sec­ond in the QE2 last year and the win­ner of the Dubai Turf at Mey­dan in March.

None of these are bomb-proof and Charyn (2nd in Lockinge), Maljoom (4th in 2022 St James Palace stakes and light­ly raced since), Hi Roy­al and Roy­al Scots­man (2nd and 3rd in 2023 2000 Guineas) will all be hop­ing to land some sort of blow. In a very com­pet­i­tive event, the safest bet is the con­sis­tent Fac­teur Cheval for whom the firm sur­face should not be an in­con­ve­nience.

The sec­ond Group 1 is the five-fur­long King Charles III Stakes. A re­al burn-up is in store with the three-year-olds Big Evs (win­ner of the Breed­ers Cup Ju­ve­nile Turf) and Crim­son Ad­vo­cate (2023 Queen Mary win­ner) tak­ing on the old­er sprint­ers such as Rogue Light­ning (5th in the 2023 Prix de l’Ab­baye), Ker­dos (2024 Tem­ple Stakes win­ner), Re­gion­al (2nd in the 2024 Green­land Stakes), As­foo­ra and Be­liev­ing amongst a host of pos­si­ble win­ners.

While three-year-olds have a poor record in this event, Big Evs brings the most po­ten­tial and is the nar­row se­lec­tion. The third Group 1 is the St James Palace Stakes which brings to­geth­er the win­ner of the three Eu­ro­pean Guineas this sea­son – No­table Speech (Eng­lish), Ros­al­lion(Irish) and Met­ro­pol­i­tan (French). Hen­ry Longfel­low, the beat­en favourite in the French Guineas, Dar­linghurst and Al­maqam add some in­trigue as un­ex­posed hors­es. The most im­pres­sive Guineas win­ner was the un­beat­en No­table Speech and he is a con­fi­dent se­lec­tion to main­tain his su­pe­ri­or­i­ty over run­ner-up that day, Ros­al­lion.

Day 2 – Wednes­day (June 19)

The fea­ture race on Wednes­day is the Prince of Wales Stakes (Grade 1) over 10 fur­longs. Fur­ther in­trigue was added to the event when it was an­nounced that the high-class In­spi­ral was be­ing re-di­rect­ed from the Queen Anne to this event. Con­nec­tions are firm­ly of the view that this mare who won the 2023 Breed­ers Cup Fil­lies and Mares Turf needs this sort of dis­tance now. She joins the top two from the 2024 Tat­ter­salls Gold Cup, White Birch and Au­guste Rodin along with the likes of Roy­al Rhyme, Blue Rose Cen, Hori­zon Dore and Lord North in an ex­cel­lent re­new­al of this top-class race.

In­spi­ral was dis­ap­point­ing the Lockinge and so is on some­thing of a re­trieval mis­sion which is made more dif­fi­cult by the in­dif­fer­ent form of the Gos­dens Sta­ble. White Birch beat Au­guste Rodin fair and square in the Tat­ter­salls but the lat­ter is strange­ly fan­cied to re­verse form on this oc­ca­sion. Blue Rose Cen is al­so on a re­cov­ery mis­sion while Roy­al Rhyme would pre­fer soft­er un­der­foot con­di­tions. A dif­fi­cult race but White Birch is fan­cied to main­tain his un­beat­en 2024 sea­son.

The oth­er fea­tures are the Queens Vase (Group 2) over one mile and six fur­longs in which the im­prov­ing and un­known Bird­man, High­bury take on the slight­ly more ex­posed Illi­nois and Mey­daan as well as Der­by fifth, Sayedaty Sa­daty. The Frankel colt, Mey­daan has been im­prov­ing with his rac­ing and is the se­lec­tion. The oth­er fea­ture is the Roy­al Hunt Cup, a pre­mier hand­i­cap over 1 mile. This race nor­mal­ly falls to im­prov­ing hors­es and any of Son­ny Lis­ton, Per­ot­to, Besh­tani, Re­al Gain, Met­al Mer­chant and Ouzo could fan­cy their chances. An each-way punt is tak­en with the peren­ni­al placed Ropey Guest, how­ev­er.

Please Note - Part 2 is Wednes­day (June 19)