Thursday brings a brilliant mix of racing: the early promise of the Chesham Stakes, the improving three year olds in the King George V Stakes, the class fillies in the Ribblesdale Stakes, and then the feature of the day, the mighty Gold Cup, where stamina, class and courage are tested like nowhere else at the meeting.
This is a day with everything: juvenile potential, staying power, deep handicaps and proper Royal Ascot theatre. As always, we’ve worked through the card looking for the right blend of value, profile, pace, draw and form.
Aidan O’Brien has won the Chesham Stakes seven times, more than any other trainer in history, and Aix La Chapelle arrives here with a pedigree that reads like a bloodstock agent’s fantasy. He is by Justify, the unbeaten US Triple Crown winner, out of the exceptional broodmare Immortal Verse whose offspring have produced an extraordinary strike rate at the highest level. His full sister Statuette was unbeaten in two starts, his half brother Henri Matisse won five of his ten races including the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, and his half sister Tenebrism won the Cheveley Park Stakes. That is not a normal family, that is one of the most productive mares in modern breeding sending out Group 1 performers by different sires and the fact that Coolmore have aimed this colt at the Chesham on the back of his Curragh run tells you they believe he belongs in the same bracket. O’Brien won this race with Churchill who went on to land a 2000 Guineas, with Battleground, with Point Lonsdale and with Bedtime Story last year and the Chesham has consistently been his launchpad for future Classic contenders. At the price this is a horse whose breeding alone justifies favouritism before you even look at the form. This horse ticks every box for a 2 year old!
RHR LONG SHOT: ATOMIC CITY – 20/1
Nineteen three year olds will tackle a mile and four furlongs in a handicap that rewards progressive types stepping up in trip and Cannes is a son of Sea The Stars, the horse who swept the 2000 Guineas, the Derby, the Eclipse, the Juddmonte and the Arc in a single devastating season that cemented him as one of the greatest racehorses ever to set foot on European turf. That breeding screams stamina and class in equal measure and the step up to a mile and four furlongs could unlock a performance that his shorter runs have only hinted at. He is trained by Joseph O’Brien who was the youngest trainer to win a Classic, a man who rode the great Camelot to an Epsom Derby before swapping the saddle for the training licence and building an operation that now competes at the highest level on three continents. In the saddle is Dylan Browne McMonagle, the reigning Irish champion jockey who won the Epsom Oaks on Thundering On for this very trainer just thirteen days ago in a performance that had Epsom gasping as he sat motionless from last to first before the filly sprinted clear without him ever picking up the whip. That Oaks victory came on top of a Breeders’ Cup Turf win at twenty eight to one aboard Ethical Diamond, an Irish St Leger on Al Riffa, a Chester Cup on A Piece Of Heaven for Joseph O’Brien just weeks before that and winners in Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia across the winter. He is twenty three years old, he grew up riding ponies in the hills of Donegal where he won two hundred and eighteen races including the Dingle Derby before he ever sat on a thoroughbred, he is also an All-Ireland boxing champion and he is now delivering English Classics for a trainer who won the Epsom Derby himself as a jockey aboard Camelot and Australia before he was thirty. McMonagle and Joseph O’Brien stepping up in distance with a son of Sea The Stars at Royal Ascot is not a coincidence, it is a plan.
Atomic City runs for Tom Marquand, the jockey they call Aussie Tom after he crossed the world to ride Group 1 doubles in Sydney for William Haggas before establishing himself as one of the most versatile riders on either hemisphere. Marquand was champion apprentice at sixteen and has never stopped climbing since and at the price in a nineteen runner handicap where lightly raced three year olds stepping up in trip consistently outrun their odds he represents each way value with a jockey whose quiet intelligence in a big field is worth its weight in gold.
Johanna Walsh is a daughter of Sea The Stars trained by Joseph O’Brien and ridden by Dylan Browne McMonagle, a combination that just thirteen days ago produced one of the performances of the season when Thundering On was delivered from last to first under McMonagle to win the Epsom Oaks in a display that had the racing world reaching for superlatives. Sea The Stars sired Star Catcher who won this very race in 2019 before going on to land the Irish Oaks, the Prix Vermeille and the British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes on her way to being crowned Cartier champion three year old filly and it is no coincidence that Joseph O’Brien has chosen a daughter of the same stallion for a race that mirrors the conditions of the Classic he won at Epsom. Johanna Walsh won at Leopardstown over a mile and two furlongs when stepped up in trip for the first time with plenty left to give and she steps up in distance again to a mile and four furlongs on a track she has never seen before but the yard is in the form of its life with staying fillies, the jockey has just won a Classic over further and the breeding says the stamina will be there when McMonagle asks the question in the Ascot straight. Six previous Ribblesdale winners failed to shed their maiden tag the season before which tells you this race rewards unexposed fillies with upside over established form and at the price Johanna Walsh is exactly that.
All of today’s RHR picks are best followed with Star Sports, our recommended bookmaker partner. New customers can bet £40 and get £20 in free bets — JOIN HERE.
There is a horse stabled in the darkest box at Clarehaven Stables in Newmarket who wears goggles when he goes out to exercise because a rare eye condition has left him sensitive to sunlight. He will arrive at Ascot on Thursday afternoon wearing those goggles in the parade ring in front of tens of thousands of racegoers and when they come off and he walks onto the track he will be defending the crown he won twelve months ago by seven lengths in a course record time. Trawlerman is an eight year old Godolphin homebred son of Golden Horn trained by John and Thady Gosden who have won this race five times between them with Stradivarius three times, Courage Mon Ami and Trawlerman himself and he returns to the scene of the most dominant Gold Cup performance in recent memory. He made every yard of the running last year under William Buick who said afterwards that he simply threw the reins at him because the horse can judge pace better than any jockey can. He was second in this race the year before that and came back twelve months later to destroy the field and break the track record and everything about the way the Gosdens have managed him since points to one thing and one thing only, this race on this day. He won all four of his starts as a seven year old, ending his campaign with the Long Distance Cup at this track in October, and has not been seen since because the Gosdens deliberately kept him for this. John Gosden has been honest about the challenge, saying it is a big ask first time out for an eight year old but adding that the horse seems in good shape. He has won eleven of his twenty three career starts and earned over two million pounds in prize money and while the favourite Scandinavia has never raced beyond a mile and six furlongs and faces a full mile further than he has ever been asked to go, Trawlerman has already proven he stays every yard of this trip, has already proven he handles this track and has already proven he can win this race. The goggles will grab the headlines but the form book tells the real story and it says this horse is the proven Gold Cup performer in the field.
RHR LONG SHOT: RUN MAN – 40/1
Laureate Crown is a course winner at Ascot having won on his debut over seven furlongs on the straight course when Jamie Spencer guided him through from the back of the field with a load of horses to pass two furlongs out in a performance that announced both the horse and the partnership in one breath. He followed that up with a victory at Sandown last time when beating the odds on favourite Organise by half a length under Oisin Murphy and the Sporting Life jury were emphatic about his claims with Nic Doggett writing that a five pound rise for that Sandown success looks manageable and that he can win this before going on to Group company. Spencer is back on board for the Britannia and that matters enormously because there is no jockey in the weighing room who rides the Ascot straight course better than he does. He waits, he waits, he waits and then he delivers with a timing that borders on cruel and in a thirty runner three year old handicap where the pace will be fierce and the closers will be picking up tired horses in the final furlong that is exactly the ride this horse needs. Paul Kealy in the Racing Post specifically flagged Spencer as a major player on Day 3 and the fact that this horse has already won on this course over this distance with this jockey means the combination has proven form where it matters most.
Runman is a forty to one shot in a Britannia field of thirty and the beauty of this race is that it is packed with unexposed three year olds whose potential is still unknown and whose handicap marks may not yet reflect what they are capable of. Every renewal since 2015 has been won by a horse rated in the mid to low nineties and at the price in a race where big fields and fast ground produce results that the market never saw coming he represents the kind of each way dart that makes the Britannia one of the most exciting betting races of the entire festival.
The Hampton Court is a ten runner Group 3 that attracts some serious talent with the likes of French raider Oceans Four under Christophe Soumillon heading the market alongside Oxagon with Oisin Murphy, Godolphin’s Maho Bay with William Buick and Generic under James Doyle all bringing genuine Group race form to a contest that has launched the careers of future champions. This is a quality field and picking the winner at a price requires finding an edge that goes beyond the formbook. Mountain Cat’s edge is sat in the saddle. Kieran Shoemark won the Queen Anne Stakes on the opening day of this meeting aboard fifty to one shot Ten Bob Tony in a ride that reminded everyone in the weighing room what this jockey is capable of when the confidence is flowing and the big race nerve holds firm. Shoemark grew up in a racing family in the Cotswolds, rode his first Royal Ascot winner back in 2017 when he took the King George V Stakes on Atty Persse and has since added Group 1 victories in the Prix de l’Opera and the Prix d’Ispahan to a CV that puts him firmly in the top tier of jockeys operating in Britain and France. He arrived at this meeting with a sixteen percent strike rate for the season and leaves the Queen Anne with a Group 1 winner’s medal in his pocket and the kind of momentum that money cannot buy. In a ten runner Group 3 where margins are razor thin and the difference between first and fourth can come down to a jockey’s confidence in the final furlong, having a rider aboard who has just produced the shock result of the meeting is an angle the market has not priced in.
RHR LONG SHOT: ELARAK – 11/1
Twenty nine runners will charge up the straight seven furlongs in the final race of Gold Cup day and Oisin Murphy won this exact race twelve months ago when Never So Brave stormed clear at four to one favourite in a performance that proved Murphy knows precisely how to navigate a big field sprint handicap on the Ascot straight. He returns aboard Dance In The Storm at a bigger price and in a race where the draw splits the field into two groups and the pace is relentless from the start having the defending winning jockey aboard is an edge that the formbook alone will not give you. Murphy has been riding with characteristic cool all week and at ten to one in a twenty nine runner handicap his tactical intelligence in the closing stages could be the difference between a placed finish and a winning one.
Elarak has Billy Loughnane in the saddle and the young jockey has had the week of his life having ridden Bow Echo to win the St James’s Palace Stakes on the opening day and his confidence and momentum at this meeting make him a dangerous booking at the price in a race where big fields and fast ground consistently produce results at double figure odds.
If you’re backing any of today’s picks make sure you’re set up with Star Sports before the first race. It’s who we use, it’s who we recommend and new customers get £20 in free bets when they bet £40 – Get Started Here
All prices quoted are correct at the time of publishing and are subject to change. We recommend checking with your bookmaker for the latest odds before placing any bets.
www.rompinghomeracing.com – Viewed Through A Sharper Lens. Built On Intelligence.
Horse racing involves risk. Bet responsibly – only bet what you can afford to lose. RHR selections are for informational and entertainment purposes only. Prices correct at time of publishing, always check with your bookmaker before placing any bets. 18+ only. For gambling support visit BeGambleAware.org or call 0808 8020 133.
