WE HAVE a smaller team heading up the road to Ascot today, but hopefully each of them can run well.
Our best chance is lovely Roaring Lion colt SAINT GEORGE (5.35) in the Queen’s Vase.
He has done nothing but improve this year and we stepped him up to a mile and three at Doncaster last time.
It was a fact-finding mission but he saw out the trip strongly and is very much a horse on the up.
This is a big step up in class but he’s capable of running a good race.
We also have NDAAWI in there, who found the all-weather track at Lingfield a bit sharp in the Derby Trial.
He is a nice horse and a strong stayer and will appreciate this stiffer test of stamina.
FLORA OF BERMUDA (2.30) runs in the Queen Mary and I think she was unlucky not to win the Hilary Needler at Beverley.
The filly who finished ahead of us that day Midnight Affair is 8-1 whereas we are 28-1. I don’t think there is that much between us.
Our filly shows plenty at home but it’s a hot race with a lot of unexposed fillies in there including the likes of Beautiful Diamond and Got To Love A Grey, two of Karl Burke’s four runners.
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If Flora is in the frame we will be happy and I think she is a bit of each-way value in a wide-open race.
And I’m hoping IMPERIAL FIGHTER can bounce back under a big weight in the Hunt Cup (5.00).
He has been a little disappointing this year but we know is a talented horse at his best.
Maybe this sort of big-field cavalry charge will suit him.
Of course, this meeting is not all about our runners. We’e here to enjoy and celebrate all that is good about the game.
And, even though we don’t have a runner in the race, I, like everyone else here today, will be riveted by the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes.
It could turn out to be the race of the entire meeting with nothing to choose between five of the six on ratings.
Adayar has won a Derby and I hear Charlie Appleby is absolutely delighted with him.
Potentially this is the horse’s biggest race since that day at Epsom two years ago — certainly when it comes to his stud profile.
Connections want that all-important ten-furlong Group 1 win on his profile as it would add thousands to his fee when the time comes for him to be packed off to stud.
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Although Bay Bridge, Luxembourg and My Prospero are in there he could do it.
Of course, we’d have loved to have had a runner in the race but, whoever wins, I am really looking forward to it. These big match-ups are what Royal Ascot is all about.
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