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1 week ago | 
racingpost.com | Keith Melrose
The Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes has a strong claim to be the most international race run in Britain. That is the same this year, although the representation is not as exotic as it sometimes can be. There are no Australians and only one horse from outside Europe. That horse is Satono Reve, representing Japan. European fans are likely to find his form in East Asia difficult to parse. The first thing you might notice is that he has run against Ka Ying Rising.
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1 week ago | 
racingpost.com | Keith Melrose |David Milnes
How the Wokingham will pan out rests to an unlikely extent on the approach taken by Seamie Heffernan and Shane Gray. Those two riders are on Get It and We Never Stop, in stalls 13 and six. Between them the two horses are responsible for less than ten per cent of the market. Yet if Heffernan and Gray choose to tack across from their relatively low stalls, towards the stands' side that has seen so much of the action this week, they are likely to take half the field down with them.
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1 week ago | 
racingpost.com | Keith Melrose
The Palace of Holyroodhouse Stakes was established in 2020, so there are few trends worthy of mentioning to help you find the winner. The closest we may have is that, apart from Pilgrim last year, all winners had won on the all-weather before this race. That makes sense, given the known links between Ascot and artificial surfaces, and how much emphasis this race puts on speed despite the stiff track.
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1 week ago | 
racingpost.com | Keith Melrose |Stuart Riley
I joke sometimes that the Commonwealth Cup, rather than the St Leger, ought to be treated as the fifth Classic. I would not pretend to have a fully costed argument to back it up. Still, look at this year's race and the comparison can be made. The market is dominated by horses representing major breeding operations Godolphin, Juddmonte, Coolmore and Aga Khan Studs, while relatively new superpower owners Qatar, Amo and Wathnan also have runners.
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1 week ago | 
bloodhorse.com | Keith Melrose |Catherine Macrae
It seems counterintuitive that, with speed and precocity being so en vogue in the breeding industry, the juvenile races at Royal Ascot are harder than ever to call. The June 19 Norfolk Stakes (G2) embodies that. In its first nine years as a group 2, the winners returned 11-4, 2-1, 11-4, 10-1, 16-1, 6-1, 4-1, 4-1, and 8-1. In the last decade, most winners have returned double-figure odds and two of the last three have been 50-1 and 150-1.
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1 week ago | 
racingpost.com | Keith Melrose |Robbie Wilders |Graeme Rodway
Keith Melrose, Graeme Rodway and Robbie Wilders source the best single bet on day three of Royal AscotKeith Melrose: Right, chaps. We'll bring the readers in at this point, after we've tossed around a couple of lively ones in the handicaps. I was talking up Dividend at monster odds in the Britannia, and Robbie quite liked Light As Air in the King George V. But we couldn't get everyone to agree and so now, to business. Afjan in the Norfolk?
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1 week ago | 
racingpost.com | Keith Melrose
It seems counter-intuitive that, with speed and precocity being so en vogue in the breeding industry, the juvenile races at Royal Ascot are harder than ever to call. The Norfolk Stakes embodies that. In its first nine years as a Group 2, the winners returned 11-4, 2-1, 11-4, 10-1, 16-1, 6-1, 4-1, 4-1 and 8-1. In the last decade, most winners have returned double-figure odds and two of the last three have been 50-1 and 150-1.
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1 week ago | 
racingpost.com | Keith Melrose |Catherine Macrae
Draw biases normally favour horses who are given less distance to run. It would thus be rare on a round course these days for high-drawn runners to be at an advantage. The 1m4f track at Ascot, especially in big fields like the King George V, is one of the exceptions. A horse drawn in stall one or two in a big-field race here is at a distinct disadvantage, with only 13.4 per cent winning or placing. Horses drawn in low double-figure stalls will win or place around 30 per cent of the time.
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1 week ago | 
racingpost.com | Keith Melrose |Matt Rennie
My Cloud, The Liffey and Greek Order were already the top three in the Royal Hunt Cup betting before the draw took place. They are unlikely to relinquish their position easily after they drew stalls 32, 31 and 30. While there is naturally a lot of noise in monster-field handicaps on a straight track, those drawn high over Ascot's straight mile have a measurable advantage. In races with 25 or more runners here this century, horses drawn one to ten have a win-and-place strike-rate of 12.1 per cent.
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1 week ago | 
racingpost.com | Keith Melrose
While Royal Ascot falls very much in the first half of the Flat season, it is a turning point across so many divisions. That much is obvious with, say, two-year-olds. It might seem less so with a race like the Prince of Wales's Stakes, but just below the surface the numbers show it quite emphatically. This will be the last time the older horses have a middle-distance Group 1 to themselves before the three-year-olds join in from the Eclipse onwards.
