Racing Starts Today at Royal Ascot

The Richard Spencer-trained colt was an 11-1 chance after making an impressive debut at Newcastle last month and was produced to challenge down the centre of the track by Stevie Donohoe.

A blanket finish saw Brother Bear, the pre-race 4/1 favourite, edged out by Murillo but it was Ireland’s Rajasinghe who took the win at a big 11/1 price.

Lockinge victor Ribchester is all the rage but it is possible to pick holes in his form and Mutakayyef, who has a good record here, likes fast ground and stays 10f, appeals at 12-1.

“He’s a big boy, full of life and we love him to bits, I think he’ll be better at three as well”. But I do think he is still fairly-weighted despite a 5lb rise for Doncaster and I didn’t give him a hard time once he was hampered in the Diomed Stakes last time.

“I was hoping that he’d stay further than a mile but we don’t need to now”.

“We’d been really happy with his home work, the only worry we had was running on turf”.

Since Choir Boy’s Royal Hunt Cup win in 1953, there have been 22 more in the Queen’s silks, none perhaps greater than the breathless victory of Estimate in the 2013 Gold Cup, the first time a reigning monarch had won the fixture’s historic centrepiece.

Dual 2,000 Guineas victor Churchill renews rivalry with Barney Roy – Coolmore against Godolphin.

Last year’s champion juvenile Churchill has made a brilliant start to his three-year-old campaign, winning both the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket and the Irish equivalent at the Curragh for Aidan O’Brien. I felt I was going nowhere and, yes, I thought about calling it a day.

If there is one niggling concern, it is that he is yet to race on ground quicker than good, but hopefully plenty of water will have been put on the course. “To come back here for a second time and do what she did today, she’s got to be a special horse”. He won well on debut, beating a horse that has won twice since, including in a listed race and then came third at Naas in a race where he lost a shoe and a race that wasn’t run to suit. In a transparent lace dress signed by Alexander McQueen, the Duchess of Cambridge offered the luxury of being very dressed, while letting her skin breathe.

With boiling temperatures expected there could even be a slight relaxation of the dress code with men allowed to remove their jackets and the horses won’t be forgotten either with extra water on hand to cool them down and misting fans in the unsaddling enclosure. “He’s a proper horse”.

Ascot fell silent on the first day of the Royal meeting as a mark of respect following the recent tragic events across the country.

Forecasts of a vintage head-to-head between the two best three-year-olds owned by the world’s two bloodstock superpowers feed handily in a narrative which sees betting this week on who the top owner will be.