Top-notch Australian sprinter Home Affairs may not have it his own way in Saturday’s big race – the Platinum Jubilee stakesRoyal Ascot’s first £1m race on Wednesday attracted just five runners but the second – Saturday’s Platinum Jubilee Stakes – has drawn a record field of 27, headed by the top-notch Australian sprinter, Home Affairs.Home Affairs is a stable companion of Nature Strip, Tuesday’s impressive King’s Stand Stakes winner, and beat him by a short-head over five furlongs at Flemington in February. Continue reading...
The Queen may not make it and the cost-of-living crisis could keep others away as meeting makes tweaks to boost bettingIt will be a case of something old, something new when an unrestricted crowd returns to Royal Ascot on Tuesday, 1,088 days after Cleonte and Silvestre de Sousa eased to a comfortable success in the Queen Alexandra Stakes on the last day of the meeting in 2019.No one could have imagined at the time that it would be the last race in front of a packed grandstand at the Royal meeting for three long years, and the returning fans and fashionistas will find much that is reassuringly familiar. Continue reading...
For the first time since 1994 in the UK or Ireland, two horses with the same name are running in the same racePunters fancying a flutter at Gowran Park on Sunday will have to have their wits about them as for the first time since 1994 in the UK or Ireland two horses with the same name are running in the same race.Sierra Nevada (No 5) and Sierra Nevada (No 15) will set off in the 4.50pm contest at the Co Kilkenny track and the commentator is also likely to face a tricky time as almost inevitably the horses have been drawn out of the hat virtually next to each other in stalls one and three. Continue reading...
Desert Crown and Stone Age head the market but Saturday’s Classic at Epsom has a field packed with credible winnersThere is a familiar shape to the betting for the Derby at Epsom on Saturday, with the most impressive of the recent trial winners – Desert Crown and Stone Age – heading the market against an extended list of lightly raced opponents with significant scope for improvement on their form to date.It was much the same story in each of the last four seasons, in fact, and all four favourites – Bolshoi Ballet (11-8), Kameko (5-2), Sir Dragonet (11-4) and Saxon Warrior (4-5) – failed even to reach the first three. Continue reading...
While the five-year-old has not seen a racecourse since October, he won this race off a 107-day break last yearA competitive renewal of the John Of Gaunt Stakes is the highlight of the card at Haydock on Saturday and, with seven of the eight runners priced up between 100-30 and 14-1, it has the feel of a handicap rather than a Group Three.They will all go to post under 9st 2lb, however, which gives Kinross (3.30), who has a few pounds in hand on most of his rivals per the official ratings, an obvious chance to follow up his win in the same race 12 months ago. Continue reading...