Racing Roundtable: Royal Ascot 2025 Edition
For more than 300 years, the Royal Meeting has been one of the highlights of the British flat season. What can we expect in 2025? The Idol Horse team looks at some of the big storylines heading into one of the biggest weeks of the year.
Racing Roundtable: Royal Ascot 2025 Edition
For more than 300 years, the Royal Meeting has been one of the highlights of the British flat season. What can we expect in 2025? The Idol Horse team looks at some of the big storylines heading into one of the biggest weeks of the year.
13 June, 2025
What’s The Most Interesting Race Of The Week?
David Morgan: The St James’s Palace Stakes can often be a cracker and this year is no different. Godolphin’s disappointing scratching of Ruling Court from the Derby last Saturday at least sets up the exciting prospect of seeing the winners of Europe’s three ‘senior’ 2,000 Guineas clashing over the mile at Ascot. Ruling Court of course won the English Guineas and that means a rematch with the horse that was second to him that day, Field Of Gold.
Ruling Court was strong at Newmarket, but Field Of Gold has since raced mightily impressively to win the Irish 2,000 Guineas at the Curragh. That pair shouldn’t have it all between them this time, though, with Ballydoyle’s streetwise French Guineas hero Henri Matisse being a likely rival with strong credentials. This race should settle the pecking order among the three-year-old milers before they move into all-age company later in the summer.
Andrew Hawkins: The St James’s Palace Stakes is the most exciting and intriguing race of the Group 1 features, but the Coronation Stakes is the one race that I’ll be watching closely just to see the fallout from last month’s French 1,000 Guineas. Shes Perfect was first past the post but Zarigana was awarded the race after an inquiry; her victory was confirmed after an appeal by Shes Perfect’s connections was rejected. Shes Perfect runs in the Prix de Diane but this serves as an opportunity to test where Zarigana sits in the pecking order of European fillies.
It was looking as though Irish Guineas winner Lake Victoria would be sent out as the odds-on favourite, but Coolmore’s confirmation that she will miss the race means Zarigana is the likely public elect. It looks as though Coolmore will probably send out two of the beaten runners from the Pouliches – Exactly and Bedtime Story, the latter a runaway winner of the Chesham Stakes at Royal Ascot last year. Throw in Godolphin’s Newmarket winner Desert Flower, if she cuts back in trip after placing in the Oaks, and it has the makings of a dramatic contest.
Jack Dawling: There is simply nothing better than Royal Ascot starting off with a bang and this year’s Queen Anne is shaping up to be the perfect opener for a brilliant five days. Will Rosallion take a step forward from his encouraging reappearance in the Lockinge? Can Dancing Gemini reverse the form with Lead Artist? Or, will another unexposed four-year-old spring a bit of a shock? Both Sardinian Warrior and Lake Forest could fit that bill.
What Could Turn Out To Be The Week’s Best Story?
Andrew Hawkins: It has been 37 years since Patrick Biancone has had a starter at the Royal meeting – his last runners were River Memories (fifth) and Trigger Finger (eighth) in the Hardwicke Stakes behind Almaarad. The French trainer has never won at the meeting – many of his best horses like All Along, Sagace and Triptych didn’t race at Ascot in June and he moved to Hong Kong in 1990.
However, now based in the US, he makes his return with Lennilu in the G2 Queen Mary Stakes for the two-year-old fillies.
Biancone has had a career dogged by scandals in both Hong Kong and Kentucky, although he maintains his innocence to this day. It has been quite a journey around the world and it would be a remarkable story if he were to finally score his first winner at Royal Ascot after four decades.
David Morgan: Japanese runners get a lot of attention going into major racing events these days, but Japan has never had a winner at Royal Ascot. That’s not entirely surprising given that only 10 have tried, but some of those have been top-class talents, notably Shahryar, Deirdre, A Shin Hikari, and Grand Prix Boss.
Should Satono Reve win, it would also be a first Royal Ascot success for his jockey, the great Brazilian ace Joao Moreira, ten years on from the disappointment of defeat in the Queen Anne Stakes aboard Hong Kong’s champion of the time, Able Friend. It would be a great form boost to Hong Kong’s current champion, too, the world’s top-rated sprinter Ka Ying Rising.
Jack Dawling: A royal winner trained by the master of Closutton, Willie Mullins, and ridden by Ryan Moore would be hard to top, so hopefully Reaching High can relish the mammoth two-and-a-half-mile trip in the Ascot Stakes on the opening day.
The son of Sea The Stars should have every chance of appreciating the distance considering his dam, Estimate – who was owned by the queen – famously won the G1 Gold Cup at Royal Ascot 13 years ago.
Name One Two-Year-Old That Has Struck You As A Likely Ascot Winner
Andrew Hawkins: I loved the manner of Treanmor’s victory at Newmarket. He was installed right in the market for the Coventry Stakes, but the plan before his debut had always been to go to the Chesham Stakes and it remains his likely target. A €2 million yearling, he is a lovely son of Frankel and he looks one of the most exciting juveniles of the season so far.
David Morgan: Zelaina is a filly who caught many eyes with an impressive win on debut at Nottingham as recently as June 4. The short turnaround from first start to the cauldron of Royal Ascot shouldn’t put anyone off either because it’s a plan her trainer Karl Burke has executed successfully before.
Two years ago Burke’s Beautiful Diamond won the Nottingham race and was third in the Queen Mary, then last year Leovanni trod the same route and won the Queen Mary at odds of 22-1 off the back of the Nottingham maiden win. Zelaina, like Leovanni, is a Wathnan Racing-owned graduate of the Goffs UK Breeze-up Sale so the omens are good if the filly her trainer describes as “hot” by nature can keep her cool on the big day.
Jack Dawling: Karl Burke’s strike rate with two-year-old’s this year is a mammoth 37 per cent as of June 11 and Venetian Sun could well be the cream of the crop. The daughter of Starman is related to the precocious sprinter Sir Yoshi, cost just under a quarter of a million as a yearling, justified a short price on debut at Carlisle and looks made for the Albany.
Which Horse Are You Most Eager To See?
David Morgan: More than anything, I was looking forward to seeing Economics in the G1 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes but a muscle injury means his return to action is on hold. That disappointment is eased somewhat by the prospect of a fully-tuned Rosallion in the Queen Anne Stakes.
The Richard Hannon-trained four-year-old hadn’t raced for 333 days when he returned in the G1 Lockinge Stakes at Newbury last month. He raced a touch keenly and seemed to be short of his peak as he placed third behind the opposing Lead Artist. With the cobwebs blown away, he should be a different prospect this time as he looks to put down a first marker towards the champion miler crown.
Andrew Hawkins: Candelari has only been beaten once and has shaped as the next top French stayer, following in the footsteps of a horse like Vazirabad. His half-sister Candarliya was a decent stayer herself although she never shaped as a 2m 4f type.
Candelari’s stamina looks the major query in a Gold Cup that features few horses on as much of an upward spiral as him.
It has been 20 years since a French-trained horse, Westerner, won the Gold Cup. That came at York due to Ascot renovations, meaning that the last winner of the Gold Cup at Ascot was the great Sagaro in 1975, 1976 and 1977. It will be a real test for Candelari but I can’t wait to see him try.
Jack Dawling: I’d go back to David’s idea for story of the week and say that Satono Reve could be the most exciting horse on show at Royal Ascot, especially given what Ka Ying Rising has done in Hong Kong this season.
Satono Reve would be a three-time Group 1 winner if it wasn’t for the highest-rated sprinter in training and he appears to have a cracking chance of staking his claim as the second-best speedster on the planet when he steps out onto the turf for the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Saturday.
If You Could Make One Change To The Race Programme, What Would It Be?
Jack Dawling: I would have a rethink of how many staying races there are across the week. With two races over a mile and six furlongs, a pair over two and a half miles and the Queen Alexandra over an extended two miles and five furlongs, it seems a little bit overkill. Especially considering the Northumberland Plate – one of the biggest days on Newcastle’s calendar – over an extended two miles is just a week after Royal Ascot.
David Morgan: I love the staying races, so if it was left to me, I’d get rid of the G1 Commonwealth Cup. It’s not a bad race, all told, and it does offer an easier option for the three-year-old sprinters in their own age group, but at the same time I think that’s an issue. Royal Ascot is about excellence and should never offer a softer option at the Group 1 level, but that’s what this race is when you break it down. That being so, I reckon it’s time to channel all the three-year-olds back into the purer tests that the two big sprints, the G1 King Charles III Stakes over five furlongs and the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes over six furlongs, offer and get rid of the weaker, restricted contest.
Andrew Hawkins: I would go back to six races a day and remove some of the vast number of handicaps available. The great handicaps of the meeting have their place, but some of the newer additions seem pointless. As David says, Royal Ascot should be about excellence and races are naturally diluted if there are so many options on offer. For instance, having the Golden Gates Stakes over 1m 2f takes horses away from traditional three-year-old handicaps like the Britannia and the King George V let alone races like the Hampton Court or the King Edward VII. There’s no need to dilute the quality across the week. ∎
