A - ZRunners Horse Racing Fixtures and Results

Royal Ascot Timefigure Preview: Day three

Timing expert Graeme North previews day three of Royal Ascot and highlights his best bet.

Royal Ascot is not only the best meeting in the domestic Flat turf calendar but also the most traditional and so far it has been business as usual with Aidan O’Brien already set to become leading trainer at the meeting again and popular sire Mehmas extending his winless sequence at Royal Ascot after Wednesday’s Queen Mary to eighty-two, though the poor lad did come close to breaking his duck when Adaay of Scarlett finished second in the Coventry. 

Mehmas doesn’t have a runner in the opening Chesham Stakes as the race is restricted to the progeny of stallions who won over at least nine and a half furlongs in their racing days but Aidan O’Brien runs two, Aix La Chapelle and South Dakota, having won five of the last ten runnings. Aix La Chapelle has the better claims of that pair on the clock but Time For the Moon, Pikachu and Sea Venture have all achieved a bit more on the limited evidence available and the last-named is particularly interesting. Fillies have won three of the last ten runnings as well as providing plenty of placed runners from a small sample size and Sea Venture could hardly have been more impressive in the closing stages over six furlongs at Haydock, showing a fine turn of foot once she was pulled to the outside. A 100,000 guinea breeze-up purchase, she’s more ‘race ready’ than some of those lining up against her and should go very well.     

The following King George V Stakes is always one of the most competitive three-year-old handicaps of the year. Almost half of the twenty-two runners have yet to run beyond an extended ten furlongs, so there is bound to be plenty of improvement forthcoming from some of them, notably perhaps Enceladus who is by Sea The Stars and whose Cork win back in April in a decent time has been franked by several behind him. Heyzoom’s Newbury maiden win last month looks an even stronger piece of form given that four winners have already emerged from the six that have run since and he’s 5lb clear here at weight-adjusted ratings, but he has a high stride turnover not typically associated with a mile and a half horse at this level and whether the extra two furlongs will suit him remains to be seen. Of those already proven at a mile and a half, the progressive Arc Ole Ole has the best claims on time.