With Royal Ascot looming our form expert Ben Linfoot rates the prospects of some of the hot favourites at this week’s Berkshire jamboree.
1. BAAEED (Queen Anne Stakes) – Party time 🕺
Royal Ascot kicks off with a 2/7 shot in BAAEED in the Queen Anne Stakes and there is zero desire to take on the likely shortest-priced favourite of the whole week. The unbeaten son of Sea The Stars swaggered his way through the Lockinge on his reappearance and on his final start last season he won a vintage renewal of the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, beating no less than seven Group One winners including the 125-rated Palace Pier. This race is a Real World away from that, with Saeed bin Suroor’s horse, beaten three-and-a-quarter lengths without fuss at Newbury, his most potent threat. With that in mind, it would be a pretty seismic shock if this one got beat.
2. GOLDEN PAL (King's Stand Stakes) – Vote of no confidence ❌
“He’s the fastest of the fast,” says a bullish Wesley Ward and when you’ve rocked up at Royal Ascot before and won with speedballs like Lady Aurelia you have to sit up and take notice. Of course, we don’t really need to listen to Wesley as we know all about GOLDEN PAL; he was beaten a neck by The Lir Jet in the 2020 Norfolk Stakes here, he flopped in the 2021 Nunthorpe at York when only seventh behind Winter Power and he put those reverses behind him with a dominant all-the-way victory in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Del Mar last November. The front can be a lonely place to be on the Ascot straight course, though, and with no bend or rail to help him find his way he could well be found wanting in the closing stages. And we haven’t even got onto the possible pace burn-up and eight-time Australian Group One winning rocket Nature Strip. He’s not for me.
3. COROEBUS (St James's Palace Stakes) – Party time 🕺
The jury is still out somewhat on whether it was an above-average renewal of the Qipco 2000 Guineas. It looked it at the time and the runner-up, Native Trail, did come out and land the Irish 2,000 Guineas, albeit in more workmanlike fashion than might’ve been anticipated, so it’s so far so good for the race in that respect. While Charlie Appleby sent Native Trail to Ireland he held the Guineas winner, stablemate COROEBUS, back for this, the St James’s Palace Stakes, and going round the Ascot bend should suit this strong-travelling and classy miler. Hopefully we’ll get to see his rapid change of gear again and, if we’re being honest, this looks an easier race than the one he had at Newmarket. Mighty Ulysses and My Prospero bring intrigue and potential to the table, but the Coroebus is coming and everybody’s jumping. We like to party.
4. BAY BRIDGE (Prince Of Wales's Stakes) – Party time 🕺
This was a tough one. On the one hand BAY BRIDGE is very short at around 6/5 considering he’s never even run in a Group One before, never mind win one, but on the other I get those skinny odds as he just looks a top-level winner in-waiting. Unbeaten in five starts since stepping up to 10 furlongs, he looked a future Group horse when he won handicaps at Newbury and York last season and he’s taken Listed and Group 3 prizes in his stride since then. Last time he bolted up by five lengths in the Brigadier Gerard at Sandown, a track he could well end up at again for the Coral-Eclipse, keeping Derby-winning stablemate Desert Crown away from the older horses for another few weeks. First, though, he’ll be aiming to win a 10th Prince Of Wales’s Stakes for Sir Michael Stoute and, as much as Japanese raider Shahryar is respected, he can do just that.
5. THE ANTARCTIC (Norfolk Stakes) – Vote of no confidence ❌
Aidan O’Brien has a lot riding on his two-year-olds at Royal Ascot next week. His three-year-olds and older horses look nowhere near as formidable as they were only a few years ago and if he is to better last year’s meeting tally of two winners – with juvenile Point Lonsdale ensuring that number in the final day’s Chesham Stakes – he’ll likely need his two-year-olds to turn up and win. THE ANTARCTIC looks his Norfolk Stakes horse and he’s 11/4 favourite on the back of a narrow win in a Naas conditions race – but that doesn’t look form to hang your hat on. The runner-up, Mehmar, has been beaten twice since and the last time O’Brien won that Naas race, with Pistoletto in 2019, the horse didn’t win another race that season in five goes. Add in rivals like Walbank and Clearpoint, who have enormous potential, and The Antarctic looks one to swerve.
6. KYPRIOS (Gold Cup) – Vote of no confidence ❌
Crikey, are you kidding me? 2/1 KYPRIOS for the Ascot Gold Cup? I mean, sure, we have to respect an Aidan O’Brien-trained stayer in this race. We all remember Yeats and Fame And Glory and Leading Light and Order Of St George. But what has Kyprios actually done to deserve this lofty market status against two brilliant stayers in Stradivarius and Trueshan? He’s beaten Search For A Song in the Vintage Crop Stakes, that is it, and she hardly franked that form when beaten easily at York and Longchamp subsequently. His last win, at Leopardstown, came against nothing at all and when you weigh it all up he just looks very short. Too short. It’s not that long since he looked reluctant to be a racehorse in the Zetland Stakes and Lingfield Derby Trial. Nope, he’s not for me. I’ll be mad keen to take him on at those sort of odds.
7. PERFECT POWER (Commonwealth Cup) – Vote of no confidence ❌
It’s retrieval mission time for PERFECT POWER in the Commonwealth Cup following his seventh in the Guineas and it could well be that he was a sprinter all along. He’s bred for sprinting and he shaped like six furlongs would be his trip at two, but it’s no wonder Richard Fahey went for the Classic at Newmarket given his very good win in the Greenham over seven furlongs at Newbury on his return. He is the form pick in this race, but it won’t be easy coming back from a mile and taking on a posse of horses waiting to explode onto the scene. That’s the thing here. It looks a deep renewal and in El Caballo, Ehraz, Go Bears Go, Twilight Jet, Flaming Rib, Wings Of War and Sense Of Duty there is a lot of potential on your side if you’re taking on the double P. And that’s the way I’ll be playing it.
8. HOMELESS SONGS (Coronation Stakes) – Vote of no confidence ❌
HOMELESS SONGS looks all class, there’s no getting away from that, and the turn of foot she displayed to sink Tuesday (not bad form) in the Irish 1,000 Guineas will live long in the memory. It was Good to Yielding at the Curragh, though, and with the Ascot conditions currently Good to Firm and the forecast dry, there has to be a big possibility she won’t even run. “I wouldn’t want to see Firm strongly mentioned in the going,” says Dermot Weld. It looks likely to be there in some form, at least, and that makes me think there might be an antepost bet against her. There’s plenty to pick from in a deep renewal; last year’s Fillies’ Mile winner Inspiral, the 1000 Guineas winner Cachet, the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches heroine Mangoustine. Heck, this is some opposition to overcome even if she’s given the green light.
9. ALFRED MUNNINGS (Chesham Stakes) – Party time 🕺
A better class of horse seems to be winning the Chesham Stakes these days. Back when the race was restricted to horses whose stallions had won over 10 furlongs or more the roll of honour was littered with slow horses who very rarely amounted to anything. But now it’s been opened up to horses whose sire or dam won over nine and a half furlongs or more it’s a better race and ALFRED MUNNINGS is a beneficiary of the rule change, given he’s by Dubawi, who never won over further than a mile. Concert Hall would be Aidan O’Brien’s best Dubawi since The Lads bit the bullet, but Alfred Munnings, a half-brother to Snowfall, has the potential to rank a good bit higher than her. He’s already favourite for the 2023 Cazoo Derby and he looked all class on debut at Leopardstown, form that has been franked by the fourth home since. It could well be a tough week for O’Brien, but, like last year, he should at least have the Chesham in the bag once again.
