Key events
3.05pm QUEEN’S VASE
And they’re off …
Very sad news that Harry’s Girl suffered a fatal injury in the first race this afternoon. The Richard Hannon-trained filly was ridden by Sean Levey.
3.05pm QUEEN’S VASE betting
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Asmarani 7/2
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Carmers 9/2
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Shackleton 11/2
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Pinhole 7/1
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Rahiebb 8/1
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Scandinavia 12/1
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Further 16/1
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Spinning Wheel 20/1
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Titanium Emperor 28/1
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66-1 BAR – 13 Runners
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Full Oddschecker betting here: horse-racing/royal-ascot/15:05/winner
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Market Mover: Carmers 7/1 into 9/2
Greg Wood
3.05pm QUEEN’S VASE preview
The first significant three-year-old race of the season at a mile and three-quarters, and while Carmers took the Yeats Stakes at Navan in May over a furlong shorter, every other runner is stepping up at least two furlongs in trip. Many are likely to post a new career-best as a result, including Aidan O’Brien’s Shackleton, a son of Camelot who was fourth of five on his return to action over 10 furlongs at the Curragh but was stopped in his run and looked sure to improve for a step up in trip.
Roger Varian’s Rahiebb comes in with a fairly similar profile to the trainer’s Eldar Eldarov, who landed this in 2022 and went on to win the St Leger, while Asmarani, a product of the late Aga Khan IV’s breeding operation whose pedigree is laden with stamina, is another very interesting contender for Francis-Henri Graffard. He was runner-up to a next-time winner in the Group Three Prix Hocquart at Longchamp in May, is second-in on Timeform ratings on that form and is almost certain to find plenty more now that he goes beyond a mile-and-a-half. Devil’s Advocate, whose dam was a winner at this trip, was fourth in the Dante at York and is another to consider along with O’Brien’s second-string Scandinavia, a maiden winner by Justify out of a Galileo mare, in what looks, on paper at least, to be a cracking renewal of this race.
SELECTION: ASMARANI
2.30pm QUEEN MARY STAKES: True Love beats 100-1 shot
1 True Love (R L Moore) 9-4 Fav
2 Flowerhead (C T Keane) 100-1
3 Lennilu (Luis Saez) 11-2
23 ran
Non Runners: 1,6
2.30pm QUEEN MARY STAKES
And they’re off … this will be over very quick … Zelaina is fast away as is Lennilu … True Love is ridden along … but she’s finishing well and goes on stay on strongly to win. That’s another winner for Aidan O’Brien!
Caroline Davies, the Guardian’s royal correspondent, has written on the news from earlier this afternoon that the Princess of Wales has withdrawn from attending Royal Ascot at the last minute.
2.30pm QUEEN MARY STAKES betting
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True Love 5/2
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Zelaina 7/2
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Society Kiss 6/1
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Spicy Marg 8/1
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Cardiff By The Sea 11/1
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Lennilu 12/1
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Staya 18/1
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Harry’s Girl 20/1
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Love Olivia 25/1
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BAR 33/1 – 21 Runners
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Full betting here: horse-racing/royal-ascot/14:30/winner
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Market Mover: Cardiff By The Sea 18/1 into 11/1
Greg Wood
2.30pm QUEEN MARY STAKES preview
Royal Ascot provides all manner of different challenges for form students and the task here is to identify the winner in a big field of juvenile fillies that – with the exception of a couple of rank outsiders – have all had either one, two or no races at all. Judging the relative merits of lightly-raced two-year-olds is a tricky puzzle that tends to involve a lot of trial and error, but there has been little doubt that Karl Burke’s Zelaina would set off as the favourite for this race since she all the running to win a maiden at Nottingham earlier this month by nearly three lengths. She cost £650k at the breeze-ups earlier this year and was still showing signs of inexperience at Nottingham, so she can be expected to improve significantly for the run (Timeform added a capital “P” to her rating, suggesting that she is open to much more than normal improvement, and they don’t hand those out willy-nilly). Wesley Ward has sent four winners of this race over from his base in the United States, and while he is missing from the meeting this year, there is a still an American presence thanks to Patrick Biancone’s Lennilu. Biancone won consecutive Arcs in 1983 and 1984 with All Along and Sagace, but has now been training in the States for more than two decades.
Lennilu qualified to run via the Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies at Gulfstream, which you can watch – with commentary in Spanish, as it’s the only one I could find – here, and Timeform were sufficiently impressed by that run to make her their second-top runner in the race on ratings behind Aidan O’Brien’s True Love. Lennilu’s work rider and groom for the trip, incidentally, will be the trainer’s daughter, Andie, whose main job is as a reporter and analyst on the American racing channel, FanDuel TV. True Love, meanwhile, had her form behind stable-companion Gstaad at Navan in May seriously boosted on Tuesday when Gstaad ran out a comfortable winner of the Coventry Stakes. A raft of other contenders with a single run and win to their name include Spicy Marg and Staya, and while Spicy Marg took a Newmarket novice that has produced two Royal Ascot winners in the last three years, Staya also put up a taking performance in her Yarmouth maiden. She travelled well, eased through towards the lead, quickened when required and clocked a decent time for a debutant, so a price of around 16-1 is a fair each-way option in an open race.
SELECTION: STAYA
Queen’s Hat Stakes 2pm result
1. Green (again) 12-1.
As the royal procession makes its way down the track I am duty bound to remind my regular reader of the Serpentine gallery exhibition by artist Mark Wallinger I saw back in 1994 when one of his installations, called ‘Royal Ascot’, consisted of a series of video monitors on top of wheeled flight cases, each isolating the royal carriage’s leisurely progress down the track on the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (respectively, as it was then) of the meeting with, as the British Council points out in their description of the artwork, “the difference from day to day is barely discernible, just as the four commentaries merge in a confused blather.”
6.10pm WINDSOR CASTLE STAKES preview
A big field of two-year-olds for the final race on Wednesday, but a very obvious standout on the ratings as Rogue Legend has at least a stone in hand of every other runner on Timeform’s figures and would have been a live runner in Tuesday’s Group Two Coventry Stakes on that assessment. He raced for a syndicate in the Rogues Gallery Racing operation for his first three starts, having been picked up for 55k gns (£57k) as a yearling, and was then sold to American owner John Stewart’s Resolute Racing operation an undisclosed sum, which almost certainly went some way into seven figures.
If there is going to be one to improve past him, the market suggests it will be Andrew Balding’s Old Is Gold, with James Doyle riding in the Wathnan Racing colours that he steered to a double in the final two races yesterday. He took the Two-Year-Old Trophy at Beverley in May, while Rogue Legend’s former ownership group will have high hopes of a big run from Rogue Supremacy, an easy winner of his only race to date at Wetherby.
SELECTION: ROGUE LEGEND
Greg Wood
5.35pm KENSINGTON PALACE STAKES HANDICAP, FILLIES & MARES preview
John & Thady Gosden got off to a flier yesterday with two winners on the opening day card and his week will get even better here if Rainbows Edge, in the royal colours, can give the King & Queen their second success at this meeting in three years. Her price of around 4-1 is, fairly inevitably, a point or two shorter than it should be given the competitive nature of this race, but she does at least boast a lightly-raced and progressive four-race profile, having rounded off her three-year-old campaign with a solid second-place finish in a Listed race at Salisbury before winning a handicap over today’s track and trip seven weeks ago. She is closely matched with the re-opposing Arisaig on that form, while other obvious contenders on recent form include James Fanshawe’s Sky Safari, who is very lightly raced on turf and has a definite chance if she settles better for Saffie Osborne than she did for Danny Muscutt last time.
At bigger prices, meanwhile, Kayhana bids to add a Royal Ascot winner to her trainer Gavin Cromwell’s success in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March, while my eye was also drawn to Stephen Thorne’s Independent Expert, at around 25-1. She has more miles on the clock than many of these but is in the early stages of her career with Thorne, who has a top-notch strike-rate already in just his second season with a licence and has also done well with recruits from elsewhere. She got off the mark for her new stable Naas last time, and posted a decent time in the process.
SELECTION: INDEPENDENT EXPERT
Greg Wood
5pm ROYAL HUNT CUP HANDICAP preview
This is always one of the most competitive and eagerly-awaited handicaps of the season and most of the runners will have been prepared solely with this race in mind. That said, however, the minimum mark to be reasonably sure of getting a run these days is in the low 90s – and this year it is 94, which is bordering on Group-class ability – so the good old days when a handicapping maestro like the late Reg Akehurst could slide something in at the bottom of the weights off a mark in the late 70s are surely gone for good. That said, Roger Varian’s My Cloud, the 4-1 favourite, has just five runs in the book, but has been either first or second in all five and was sent off at odds-on to land his latest start in a Class Two handicap on the straight course at Newbury. He is 5lb higher in the weights today and has an obvious chance, but has several more “could be anything” opponents to worry about before you come to track specialists like Ralph Beckett’s Qirat, who was touched off in the Victoria Cup here in May.
The Liffey, in fact, has only four races to his name and makes his handicap debut here off a mark of 98 – and in first-time headgear – after finishing a promising fourth in a Listed contest at Naas last time. He runs for Joseph O’Brien these days but was with his father, Aidan, for his extremely light juvenile and three-year-old seasons. Bullet Point, who is looking for a four-timer for the super-shrewd William Haggas, while Greek Order is another eye-catcher making his debut for Michael Bell with Christophe Soumillon booked to ride. He started his career with Roger & Harry Charlton, was sent off at just 5-2 favourite for the Cambridgeshire, one of the season’s most competitive handicaps, in 2023 and then spent 2024 and the first months of 2025 with Bill Mott in the US. He is potentially well-handicapped off 95 if his old talent can be rekindled. And if you are looking for something at a massive price that might run into a place, Roger Fell’s veteran La Trinidad is worth a second look at around 40-1. He is an eight-year-old these days but has been as good as ever in hot handicaps at York and Thirsk on his last two starts.
SELECTION: QIRAT
It’s getting faster out there as the temperatures rise – Greg Wood at the track tells me it’s now Good to Firm on the straight – no more “good ground in places’”.
Princess of Wales pulls out of Royal Ascot at last minute
So the announcement of the royal procession has resulted in an actual news story as the original list of those travelling in the carriages has been amended and the Princess of Wales has withdrawn from attending Royal Ascot, apparently at the last minute. It must have been so as the first draft of those in the carriages was sent to journalists at 12.03pm and then news started to emerge about a quarter of an hour later that she would not be at the races this afternoon.
Kensington Palace has reportedly declined to comment on the decision, but royal correspondents are reporting that the Princess of Wales is understood to be “disappointed” at not being able to be at the meeting with her husband and the King and Queen but “has to find the right balance” on returning to full-time duty.
She was admitted to the London Clinic for abdominal surgery in January last year and announced she was in remission 12 months later. She had attended Trooping the Colour and Order of the Garter in recent days and made a visit to the recently opened V&A East Storehouse last week.
Greg Wood
4.20pm PRINCE OF WALES’S STAKES preview
The first piece of recent form to consider in Wednesday’s feature event is undoubtedly the Group One Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh last month, when Los Angeles beat Anmaat, last year’s surprise Champion Stakes winner over today’s track and trip, by half a length. The bare form, though, tells only half the story, as Anmaat, who was making his seasonal debut against a race-fit Los Angeles, travelled like the best horse in the race for much of the way and traded at 1-9 in running on Betfair when he ranged alongside inside the final furlong. Owen Burrows’s gelding was outstayed to the line, but with the race under his belt and back at the scene of his biggest win to date, it would be no surprise at all to see him reverse the form. Even that might not be enough to get the win, though, as See The Fire is a fascinating late addition to the field via a supplementary entry. Andrew Balding’s filly put up a much-improved performance in the Middleton Stakes at York in May, scooting a dozen lengths clear after scything through the pack on the bit. The visual impression was backed up by a strong time and she is a serious contender to get a first Group One win on the board. French raider Map Of Stars is another runner without a Group One win as yet, but the top-class Sosie, the current favourite for the Arc in October, got first run on him in the Prix Ganay last time and he was finishing best of all. Ombudsman too is in with a big shout, despite losing his unbeaten record when second to Almaqam in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown last time, and even the 25-1 shot Facteur Cheval would have a squeak on his best form. Jerome Reynier’s gelding won the Dubai Turf at Meydan in 2024 and was not far away when sixth in the same race in early April.
KEY FORM:
Tattersalls Gold Cup, the Curragh, 25 May 25 (Los Angeles, Anmaat).
https://youtu.be/Nm__cQjBTGY?feature=shared
Prix Ganay, Longchamp, 27 Apr 25 (Map Of Stars).
https://youtu.be/42SlamCZsP0?feature=shared
Champion Stakes, Ascot, 19 Oct 24 (Anmaat, Los Angeles).
https://youtu.be/0QXdf7zGexw?feature=shared
Middleton Stakes, York, 15 May 25 (See The Fire).
https://youtu.be/LfTuXh8vMKo?feature=shared
Brigadier Gerard Stakes, Sandown, 29 May 25 (Ombudsman).
https://youtu.be/S68WsLHK1Fk?si=MlwLBx2NjnYKmBiF
Dubai Turf, Meydan, 30 Mar 24 (Facteur Cheval).
https://youtu.be/UK9A05xfOd8?si=ViTJMEjPBDpTQJza
SELECTION: SEE THE FIRE
Queen’s Hat Stakes 2pm
Our regular reader will be well aware we always have the first betting heat, a fashion one, before the racing gets underway. What colour will Camilla’s hat be today after a mint green titfer yesterday by Philip Treacy which I thought was blue!
William Hill are betting on the heat with the odds as follows:
9-4 Blue, 3-1 Pink, 5-1 Yellow, 13-2 White, 12-1 Green, 14-1 Brown, Orange, Purple, 16-1 Red, Grey, 25-1 Black.
Royal Procession Stakes, 2pm
Here are the runners and riders in the carriages coming down the track in two hours’ time:
1st Carriage
The King
The Queen
Prince Saud bin Khalid Al-Saud
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Soames of Fletching
2nd Carriage
The Prince of Wales
The Princess of Wales
Mr. Justin Rose
Mrs. Justin Rose
3rd Carriage
The Duke of Gloucester
The Duchess of Gloucester
The Earl of Halifax
The Countess of Halifax
4th Carriage
The Lady Sarah Chatto
Mr. Daniel Chatto
Mr. Robert Harris
Mrs. Robert Harris
The Prince and Princess of Wales turn up on the day of the race named after him which is becoming a regular ocurrence. Some interesting guests there … golfer Justin Rose and the novelist Robert Harris, author of Conclave and ex of the Observer, ex of our stable.
Meanwhile, the Ephraim Hardcastle column. in the Daily Mail pointed out this morning that “Prince Andrew’s public banishment continued on Tuesday with his non-appearance at Royal Ascot. At least the disgraced Duke was invited to the Windsor Castle lunch before the King, Queen and other royals took part in the carriage procession to the nearby course. My mole whispers that Andrew is sometimes on hand to help entertain guests, especially on days when other royals are thin on the ground, although dressed in his best bib and tucker he isn’t allowed to join them on the course.”
Would be fascinating to be a fly on the wall when Harris and Prince Andrew met!
Greg Wood
3.40pm DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE STAKES preview
Just eight runners for this fillies’ and mares’ Group Two, but every last one of them has at least a snippet of form somewhere that a decent lawyer could build a case around. The obvious candidates are Cinderella’s Dream, who took the Group Two Dahlia Stakes with ease last time but carries a 3lb penalty as a result, and Fallen Angel, last season’s Irish 1,000 Guineas winner, who was sixth on her return to action in the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury but went off at 20-1 and surely needed the race. Her fine efforts in defeat in the Group One Matron Stakes at the Curragh and then the Prix de l’Opera at Longchamp on Arc weekend in October make her a major player. She is not the only Classic winner in today’s field as Elmaka will attempt to register a first success since edging a blanket finish to the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket last season, although she was handed a comprehensive beating by Cinderella’s Dream in the Dahlia.
SELECTION: CINDERELLA’S DREAM
Greg Wood
3.05pm QUEEN’S VASE preview
The first significant three-year-old race of the season at a mile and three-quarters, and while Carmers took the Yeats Stakes at Navan in May over a furlong shorter, every other runner is stepping up at least two furlongs in trip. Many are likely to post a new career-best as a result, including Aidan O’Brien’s Shackleton, a son of Camelot who was fourth of five on his return to action over 10 furlongs at the Curragh but was stopped in his run and looked sure to improve for a step up in trip. Roger Varian’s Rahiebb comes in with a fairly similar profile to the trainer’s Eldar Eldarov, who landed this in 2022 and went on to win the St Leger, while Asmarani, a product of the late Aga Khan IV’s breeding operation whose pedigree is laden with stamina, is another very interesting contender for Francis-Henri Graffard. He was runner-up to a next-time winner in the Group Three Prix Hocquart at Longchamp in May, is second-in on Timeform ratings on that form and is almost certain to find plenty more now that he goes beyond a mile-and-a-half. Devil’s Advocate, whose dam was a winner at this trip, was fourth in the Dante at York and is another to consider along with O’Brien’s second-string Scandinavia, a maiden winner by Justify out of a Galileo mare, in what looks, on paper at least, to be a cracking renewal of this race.
SELECTION: ASMARANI
Greg Wood
2.30pm QUEEN MARY STAKES preview
Royal Ascot provides all manner of different challenges for form students and the task here is to identify the winner in a big field of juvenile fillies that – with the exception of a couple of rank outsiders – have all had either one, two or no races at all. Judging the relative merits of lightly-raced two-year-olds is a tricky puzzle that tends to involve a lot of trial and error, but there has been little doubt that Karl Burke’s Zelaina would set off as the favourite for this race since she all the running to win a maiden at Nottingham earlier this month by nearly three lengths. She cost £650k at the breeze-ups earlier this year and was still showing signs of inexperience at Nottingham, so she can be expected to improve significantly for the run (Timeform added a capital “P” to her rating, suggesting that she is open to much more than normal improvement, and they don’t hand those out willy-nilly). Wesley Ward has sent four winners of this race over from his base in the United States, and while he is missing from the meeting this year, there is a still an American presence thanks to Patrick Biancone’s Lennilu. Biancone won consecutive Arcs in 1983 and 1984 with All Along and Sagace, but has now been training in the States for more than two decades.
Lennilu qualified to run via the Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies at Gulfstream, which you can watch – with commentary in Spanish, as it’s the only one I could find – here, and Timeform were sufficiently impressed by that run to make her their second-top runner in the race on ratings behind Aidan O’Brien’s True Love. Lennilu’s work rider and groom for the trip, incidentally, will be the trainer’s daughter, Andie, whose main job is as a reporter and analyst on the American racing channel, FanDuel TV. True Love, meanwhile, had her form behind stable-companion Gstaad at Navan in May seriously boosted on Tuesday when Gstaad ran out a comfortable winner of the Coventry Stakes. A raft of other contenders with a single run and win to their name include Spicy Marg and Staya, and while Spicy Marg took a Newmarket novice that has produced two Royal Ascot winners in the last three years, Staya also put up a taking performance in her Yarmouth maiden. She travelled well, eased through towards the lead, quickened when required and clocked a decent time for a debutant, so a price of around 16-1 is a fair each-way option in an open race.
SELECTION: STAYA
Here’s the run down of the action today and I will start posting Greg Wood’s previews to give you a chance to study the form:
2.30pm – The Queen Mary Stakes (5f)
3.05pm – The Queen’s Vase (1m 6f)
3.40pm – The Duke of Cambridge Stakes (1m)
4.20pm – The Prince of Wales’s Stakes (1m 2f)
5.00pm – The Royal Hunt Cup (Heritage Handicap) (1m)
5.35pm – The Kensington Palace Stakes (Handicap) (1m)
6.10pm – The Windsor Castle Stakes (5f)
Rub these names out on your racecards. These are the horses that won’t be turning up this afternoon along with their sick notes!
2.30pm Queen Mary Stakes
6 Eternal Solace (not eaten up)
4.20pm Prince Of Wales’s Stakes
2 Certain Lad (going not suitable)
5.35pm Kensington Palace Stakes
20 Queen Of Atlantis (bad scope)
6.10pm Windsor Castle Stakes
13 Kansas (not eaten up)
Good morning. It’s sweltering already as I’m sure you’ve noticed and it’s only going to get hotter so as advised yesterday there’s going to be no major change in the ground conditions out on the track.
The official going for day two at Royal Ascot is Good to Firm, good in places.
GoingStick readings at 8.30am:
Stands’ side: 8.5
Centre: 8.6
Far side: 8.5
Round course: 7.4
Preamble
Greg Wood
Good morning from Ascot on day two of the 2025 Royal meeting on what promises to be another scorcher of a day, both on and off the track.
There is only one Group One event on the card – the Prince of Wales’s Stakes in the traditional primetime slot at 4.20pm (all times BST) – but it is an ultra-competitive renewal with no fewer than five of the runners priced up between 9-4 and 11-2 or shorter.
A trio of Group Twos take us up to the feature, ranging from two-year-old fillies blitzing down the straight course in the Queen Mary Stakes (2.30pm) to three-year-old stayers and St Leger candidates in the Queen’s Vase. And the late afternoon action includes the Royal Hunt Cup, one of the most competitive handicaps of the year, and the added bonus of a royal runner with a big chance as Rainbows Edge goes to post in the purple and scarlet silks for the Kensington Palace Stakes at 5.35pm.
Five millimetres of water on both the straight and round courses overnight has maintained the going as good to firm, good in places, although it is sure to be getting faster as the day unfolds.
In the jockey and trainer standings, Ryan Moore remains odds-on to be the week’s leading rider at around 4-7 but James Doyle, who rode the last two winners on the opening day, is now down to 15-8 (from an opening 5-1) with William Buick, who remains winnerless, is out to around 10-1. Fallen Angel, in the Duke Of Cambridge Stakes, and Map Of Stars, in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, are Doyle’s major hopes today, while all four of Moore’s rides on the card – True Love (2.30pm), Shackleton (3.05pm), Los Angeles (4.20pm) and The Liffey (5pm) – are currently either favourite or second-favourite for their races.
A report on yesterday’s action with a quick stroll through today’s card is here, more detailed previews of today’s seven races are on the way, and all the latest news, betting moves, results, quotes and more will be here on the live blog throughout the day.
