Jack Dawling
With the opening day in the rearview mirror, day two at Royal Ascot offers a blend of promising two-year-olds and big-field handicaps alongside the main feature, the G1 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes over 10 furlongs.
Los Angeles and Anmaat finished one-two in the G1 Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh last month and will engage in what will hopefully be an enthralling rematch.
The Aidan O’Brien-trained Los Angeles, third in last year’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and unbeaten in two starts this term, is the likely favourite ahead of Anmaat, who claimed his second top-level win in last October’s G1 Champion Stakes over the same course and distance.
French trainer Francis-Henri Graffard will look to spoil the party when his improving four-year-old, Map Of Stars, makes his first trip over the English Channel after he came within a neck of victory in the G1 Prix Ganay.
An extra level of intrigue appears thanks to the supplementation of four-year-old filly See The Fire, who skipped away to a career-best 12-length win in the G2 Middleton Fillies’ Stakes at York last time out.
NAP: R5 #23 Fox Legacy
David Morgan
Karl Burke has long had his eye on the G2 Duke Of Cambridge Stakes for last year’s G1 Irish 1,000 Guineas heroine Fallen Angel. The grey had a good pipeopener against the boys in the G1 Lockinge Stakes last time and while she will have to be at her best, she is set to carry 3lb less than top-class rival Cinderella’s Dream.
Burke will try to win the opener, the G2 Queen Mary, for the third time in four years with likely favourite Zelaina who won the same Nottingham maiden as last year’s winner Leovanni. She looked good that day but this is a 25-runner race and plenty can happen.
Aiden O’Brien has never won the Queen Mary but his True Love has smart form in Ireland, while Tim Easterby, whose father Peter Easterby, trainer of champions, passed away recently, last won the race 25 years ago with Romantic Myth. Easterby has an interesting candidate in Revival Power. Lennilu is a rare Ascot runner for U.S.-based trainer Patrick Biancone.
For all the Group race action, the day’s finest spectacle will likely be the 30-runner Royal Hunt Cup down the straight mile. David Marnane won the race in 2018 and landed another big handicap at the meeting, the Wokingham, in 2012: the savvy Irishman’s Hunt Cup contender this year is Tokenomics from stall 26.
NAP: R3 #4 Fallen Angel
Andrew Hawkins
The G2 Queen’s Vase has been transformed since dropping in distance from two miles to 1m 6f. When it was run over the extended trip, it produced an above average three-year-old once every five years or thereabouts. Now, it seems to be every second year or so.
Aidan O’Brien has won three of the eight Queen’s Vases at 1m 6f and he holds the key to the race with Shackleton and Scandinavia. However, Ireland is also represented by Paddy Twomey-trained Carmers, a big winner of the Listed Yeats Stakes last start.
France is represented by Francis Graffard’s Asmarani, while Devil’s Advocate will fly the Union Jack for John and Thady Gosden. It wouldn’t surprise to see a star staying three-year-old emerge from this race.
The handicaps provide a good starting point for many young apprentices seeking their first Royal Ascot experience.
One familiar surname in the Kensington Palace Stakes is Callan, but it is not seven-time Royal Ascot winner Neil – who has four other rides on the card but is not engaged in the Kensington Palace, which he won in 2022 – but his teenage son Jack.
Jack Callan rides Unassuming, replacing Harry Bentley who was originally booked before deciding not to make the trip from Hong Kong.
NAP: R4 #9 See The Fire
Day 2 of Royal Ascot begins Wednesday at 2:30pm (GMT). ∎
