Three-year-old stars set to shine at 2024 Royal Ascot including Inisherin, Notable Speech and Elmalka

Will Notable Speech again have the legs of Rosallion?

If he does he’ll win the St James’s Palace and while City Of Troy’s Betfred Derby success has catapulted him back into the role of Classic generation poster-boy, there remains the distinct possibility that the class of 2024 also have a crackerjack miler in Notable Speech.

His rise to the top has been well documented, from winter heats on the all-weather to Guineas glory (replay below) in the space of less than four months. And the way he travelled and quickened at Newmarket, despite his inexperience, the wide, open spaces and the first proper roar of a crowd he’s every encountered, well he looked the real deal.

Rosallion’s hopes of reversing the form, providing the upwardly mobile favourite is on his A-game, rest with going around a bend and the different tempo that is likely to produce. It’s worth as shot – and is indeed one to nothing following his win in the Irish 2000 Guineas last time out.

He’s a very talented colt – but his Newmarket conqueror looked a potential top-notcher on the first Saturday in May and with a shock winner of the Lockinge, and a wide-open Queen Anne on the cards, the rest of the season in this division could really open up for him should he deliver again.

Big chance in the King Charles III?

Well, Big Evs isn’t hanging round. He’s taking on the Group One older gunslingers at the very first opportunity.

It’s a big ask but the speed pool isn’t particularly deep this time around and any thoughts he was a wham-bam two-year-old were dispelled when he made a winning return at York. Yes, he was down in grade, but made light work of a weight penalty and being ridden with more restraint than normal. He came within a pound of his best Timeform performance rating that day and had plenty left in the tank.

It’s early for a clash of the generations but Lady Aurelia won this as a three-year-old and in the last decade three of the same age have hit the frame.

Big Evs might not be flying solo this time either. Bucanero Fuerte, Relief Rally and last year’s Queen Mary heroine Crimson Advocate, now in the Wathnan silks and trained at Clarehaven, are among those in line to join him.

Big Evs is leading the way, although Tiemform’s weight-adjusted ratings suggest he’ll need a career-best effort to come out on top. He's eight pounds below the highest rated older horse at this stage – yet finds himself at the head of the market.

It’s about potential. Is he ready to realise all of his on day one of the meeting? We’ll see.

How will the Classic form stand up in the Coronation Stakes?

If the market is to be believed we should be pouring over the video of the Irish 1,000 Guineas right now (replay below).

Fallen Angel won that day – and impressively too – in command from some way out and beating A Lilac Rolla by two-and-three-quarter lengths. It was a big step forward from her Newmarket return and she hit a meaty Timeform rating in the process. So she’s Ascot favourite then?

No. Karl Burke’s filly can be backed at 4/1 and the Curragh runner-up 20/1. Instead our Coronation Stakes favourite is Opera Singer, fourth in the Irish 1,000 on her seasonal return.

Aidan O’Brien said there’d been a small hold-up in the spring, and she was only just about ready for that first start. In the end she ran ten pounds below the figure she recorded in winning the Prix Marcel Boussac to finish nearly five lengths off Fallen Angel.

Clearly there could be more to come from her – but the same comment surely applies to the principals from Newmarket too?

Fallen Angel failed to fire in eighth that day, but the QIPCO 1000 Guineas was a race that sparked plenty of debate in the immediate aftermath, in fact a good deal more than there’d been leading into it.

Connections and supportters of Ramatuelle and Tamfana will argue until they’re blue in the face that they were unlucky – and maybe both were.

But the winner Elmalka was having only her third career start (Kazzia and Ghanaati the two other Newmarket heroines this century to have raced just twice before) and won a Classic despite running green when first asked to close.

The most impressive aspect of her performance was the finishing effort to get to Porta Fortuna in the dying strides and win by a neck. Yes, it was a day when the cards fell her way – but it was also by nine pounds a career best run. Surely, she can go forward again.

The Newmarket runner-up has less obvious scope for improvement but is a teak-tough, battle-hardened filly who seems sure to run her race, and what of third home Ramatuelle?

I bet Aurelien Lemaitre would love another crack at the Guineas, he patently went for home too soon (even then faring best of those who raced prominently) when finishing third. She looked all over the winner when going clear a furlong-and-a-half out.

She just about convinced us that she stays a mile, particularly ridden with a tad (yes, I know) more restraint. A turning track will help eek out the stamina too.

It boils down to a fascinating renewal of the Coronation Stakes when a shedload of questions will be answered…talking of which.

Who is up for the Commonwealth Cup?

Well, a whole host of exciting three-year-old sprinters, that’s who. Going into winter quarters this looked Vandeek’s for the taking. Limber up in the Sandy Lane, win at Ascot and then prepare to lock horns with the older speedballs having vanquished those of your age group.

But the brilliance he showed in winning the Prix Morny and Middle Park as a two-year-old was missing at Haydock and his unbeaten record went west, the son of Havana Grey finishing only third behind Inisherin – beaten four lengths.

He was strong in the market but connections felt he needed it – a more likely explanation than the ground given how he handled an even more testing surface when winning last year’s Richmond Stakes.

So he goes to Ascot with a point to prove. It’s too early to write him off as having not trained on, it seems we’re quick to reach for that button in 2024, but his tendency to over-race early was evident on his comeback and that is a worry. So is the question of just how good is his Haydock conqueror?

Because low-mileage Inisherin was electric on his first outing as a sprinter, travelling like a veteran at the trip and drawing clear in the final furlong in the style of a colt going places. Despite the owner already having Elite Status in the race, the Commonwealth Cup had to be his next port of call.

Watching the race over again, it’s hard to make a convincing case for Vandeek reversing the form, but if the Crisford colt is back to his 2023 peak, Inisherrin will have to improve another three or four pounds to beat a revived rival.

And it’s no head-to-head.

I’ve already touched on Elite Status but he can motor. Karl Burke’s star came up short when his sights were raised to Group One company at two, but the way he beat Relief Rally and Adaay In Devon in the Carnarvon Stakes on his sole run this time around suggested he’s well worth another tilt at one. And this one in particular.

Then there’s River Tiber for Aidan O’Brien. He made a taking return to action when third in the Irish 2000 Guineas. Maybe his future lies over that mile trip but this is a mid-summer, Group One, six-furlong option and the only one in which the older brigade are barred. Could that tempt connections to let him rip again over shorter?

And there’s depth elsewhere. Bucanero Fuerte typically found plenty when he had to make a winning return at Naas, Jasour looks like a high-class sprinter and ran like one when winning the trial at this track in May, while Starlust ran away with a valuable handicap at York from a mark of 105 to hit at Timeform figure that would have seen him placed in the last four renewals of the Ascot showpiece.

And there you have it.

A big week in Berkshire for the three-year-olds. Lots of questions to be answered and the suspicion is a few horses will emerge who are more than capable of joining City Of Troy in taking the fight to the older generation in the months ahead.

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