Day 5 brings Royal Ascot to a close, and Saturday’s card has a proper final day feel about it. The Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes is the headline act, a Group 1 sprint over six furlongs that often attracts a strong international field, while the Hardwicke Stakes adds real class over the longer trip. Throw in the Jersey Stakes, the cavalry charge of the Wokingham, and the marathon Queen Alexandra Stakes to round off the week, and the final day looks full of chances for RHR to finish Royal Ascot strongly.
RHR LONG SHOT: SOCIAL SYMBOL – 33/1
21 two year olds will sprint up the straight five furlongs in a race that Aidan O’Brien won twelve months ago with Charles Darwin giving him a record tying fourth Norfolk Stakes victory and Carry The Flag arrives with the single strongest form reference in the entire field. He finished second to Great Barrier Reef in the Marble Hill Stakes at the Curragh beaten just a length and a quarter and that form was emphatically franked on Tuesday when Great Barrier Reef went on to win the Coventry Stakes on the opening day of this meeting. Simon Rowlands at Timeform noted that Carry The Flag might not quite have got home over six furlongs in the Marble Hill which makes the drop back to five furlongs on Saturday a significant positive and O’Brien himself confirmed as much when he said that jockey Wayne Lordan told him the horse will be very happy going back to the minimum trip. He won a five furlong maiden at Naas before the Marble Hill which proves the speed is there and in a Norfolk where the form pick is rarely this obvious William Hill made him their NB selection for the entire final day calling him the clear form horse in the race. O’Brien has won this four times, he targets the Norfolk with his fastest juveniles every single year and when the horse who finished closest to a subsequent Coventry winner drops back in trip with the trainer who knows this race better than anyone in the sport the case makes itself.
Social Symbol has William Buick aboard at 33/1. Buick does not accept hopeless mounts at Royal Ascot and the Norfolk has produced shock winners at 50/1 and a 150/1 in the last four years which means outsiders with top jockey bookings can never be dismissed in a race where two year olds with one or two career starts are still capable of improvement that nobody outside the yard has seen yet.
Twelve months ago Andrew Balding admitted he had discussed sending Kalpana to the sales because as a two year old she had not even done any fast work and nobody at Kingsclere knew what they had on their hands. She made her racecourse debut at Wolverhampton in January 2024 and from that moment forward the trajectory of her career has been one of the most extraordinary in modern flat racing. She won a handicap at Newmarket, then a Listed at Hamilton by four and a half lengths, then a Group 3 at Kempton by four and three quarter lengths and by October she was winning the Group 1 British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes at Ascot where Balding said afterwards that he had never known a horse improve as much. She came back twelve months later and won the same race again, making it back to back Group 1 victories at this course, and in between those two Champions Day triumphs she finished second in the King George at this track behind Calandagan in a performance that confirmed she belongs at the very highest level against the best middle distance horses in Europe. That gives her an Ascot record of three runs producing two Group 1 wins and a Group 1 second and there is not another horse in this twelve runner Hardwicke field who can match that course form. She made her seasonal reappearance at Newbury five weeks ago in the Aston Park Stakes carrying a Group 1 penalty and beat West Wind Blows by a neck with Balding saying her fitness was telling inside the final half furlong but that she showed she still has the appetite and desire for it. West Wind Blows reopens in this Hardwicke which means Kalpana has already beaten one of her rivals this season while giving away a penalty she does not carry today. She is by Study Of Man the French Derby winner out of Zero Gravity a Dansili mare whose sister Zambezi Sun won the Grand Prix de Paris and whose family includes the July Cup and Prix de l’Abbaye winner Continent. She was bred by Juddmonte, owned by Juddmonte and represents everything that operation stands for in terms of patience and belief in the racehorse. Colin Keane takes the ride and she receives a three pound fillies allowance which effectively gives her a weight advantage over every colt and gelding in the field. The horse they nearly sold is now the favourite for the Hardwicke and on course form alone nobody in this race can touch her.
RHR LONG SHOT: Sayidah Dariyan – 33/1
Nineteen sprinters from five countries will contest the million pound feature race of the final day and while the market focuses on Joliestar from Australia and the Japanese raider Satono Reve it is Comanche Brave who carries the form that connects most directly to this race. Donnacha O’Brien’s four year old finished third in the 1351 Turf Sprint on Saudi Cup Day in February beaten just a single length by Reef Runner and Lazzat, the horse who won this very race twelve months ago, and that form line ties him directly to the Jubilee in a way that none of the other runners in the field can match. He then took on Ka Ying Rising, the world’s best sprinter on a twenty race winning streak, in the Chairman’s Sprint Prize at Sha Tin and was not disgraced in fifth before coming home to destroy the Greenlands Stakes field at the Curragh by two lengths in a performance that Donnacha described as the moment he knew the horse had arrived. O’Brien said afterwards that he had wanted to go sprinting with this horse for a while and that the maturity and strength needed to compete against older sprinters at the highest level was finally coming and Timeform agreed, calling him unexposed as a sprinter and well worth his place in the top domestic sprint division. He is by Wootton Bassett and has already proven he handles Ascot having won at this track and finished third in the Jersey Stakes at this meeting last year which gives him course form that Joliestar and Satono Reve can only dream of on their first visits to Berkshire. The international campaign through Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong has hardened him and the Greenlands romp confirmed the improvement was real. At 11/1 he is the value pick in the race because the form behind last year’s winner and the course form at this track are both proven and the market has been distracted by the glamour of the Australian and Japanese raiders.
Sayidah Dariyan has Billy Loughnane in the saddle and the young jockey has arguably had the ride of his life at this meeting winning on Bow Echo in the St James’s Palace Stakes on opening day and collecting big race mounts throughout the week that established jockeys would fight for. At 33/1 in a nineteen runner Group 1 sprint where Khaadem won at 8/1 three years ago and outsiders consistently outperform in the biggest sprint of the meeting his confidence and momentum make him a dangerous booking at a price the market will ignore.
RHR LONG SHOT: Colori Forever – 14/1
The Jersey Stakes attracts three year olds who sit just below the Classic elite and The Prettiest Star arrives here having finished fourth in the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket which is comfortably the best piece of form on offer in a Group 3 and represents a massive class drop from the level she has been competing at. She is by Starman the same sire who produced Venetian Sun and if Venetian Sun has just won the Commonwealth Cup on this card then the Starman sire line is proving itself on the Ascot straight in real time this week which is not a coincidence but a breeding pattern that the market has not fully connected. Ed Walker trains and his strike rate this season has been outstanding with the yard operating at a level that has attracted the attention of the biggest owners in the sport. Connections had the option of running in the Coronation Stakes against Precise and True Love but deliberately chose the Jersey instead which tells you everything about where they believe this filly’s best chance of winning a Royal Ascot race lies. When connections duck the harder race and aim at the easier one with a filly who was fourth in a Classic you follow that decision because it is not made out of fear it is made out of confidence. James Doyle takes the ride having produced winner after winner with his deliberate jockey choices throughout the meeting and a 1000 Guineas fourth carrying a three pound fillies’ allowance against colts in a Group 3 where the class advantage is obvious makes The Prettiest Star the selection.
Colori Forever has Marco Ghiani aboard at 14/1 and in a Jersey field of seventeen where the market is dominated by Classic form and big stable jockeys there is always room for a horse at a price whose ability over seven furlongs on fast ground has not yet been fully tested at this level. The Jersey has a history of producing surprise results with horses who improve for the step up to Group company at Royal Ascot and at the price in a race where the favourite is opposable he represents the kind of each way value that makes the closing stages of the meeting worth staying for.
RHR LONG SHOT: Two Tribes – 22/1
The Stewards’ Cup and the Wokingham are the two great sprint handicap cavalry charges of the British flat season and Soldier’s Tree is the only horse in this field who has already won one of them. He stormed up the Goodwood straight to land the Stewards’ Cup last August making all the running against the stand rail on good ground and when he returned to Ascot last month he did exactly the same thing over course and distance, hitting the front and daring anything to come past him. Nobody did. A front runner who has proven he can dominate from the rail on fast ground at this track is a dangerous animal in the Wokingham because while every other jockey in the race is fighting for position and navigating traffic Silvestre De Sousa can break clean, grab the stand rail and set the tempo on his own terms. He went to Bahrain over the winter and came back flat but the moment he returned to British turf he bounced straight back to form which tells you the horse needs this surface and these conditions to show his best. He carries a seven pound rise for the Ascot win which tightens things up but a Stewards’ Cup winner who handles this course and distance on fast ground at 20/1 is exactly the kind of proven big field sprint handicapper that the Wokingham was made for.
Unbeaten as a juvenile and progressive since, Two Tribes won a six furlong handicap at Doncaster in the autumn before resuming this season with a strong second in a Listed contest at Salisbury under David Egan which confirmed he is operating at a level that gives him every right to be competitive here. Egan has ridden with growing confidence throughout the meeting and at 22/1 he is a definite solid each way shout here.
RHR LONG SHOT: BAYAANN – 14/1
Shane Foley does not cross the Irish Sea for handicaps at Royal Ascot unless the horse beneath him has shown something at home that justifies the trip and the former Irish champion jockey whose CV includes the Irish 1000 Guineas, the Irish Oaks and a career that saw him operate as number one rider to some of the most powerful yards in Irish racing brings a level of tactical intelligence to a three year old middle distance handicap that most jockeys in this field simply cannot match. Harmonics arrives here stepping up to a mile and two furlongs for the first time and in a race that was only introduced in 2020 but has already established a clear pattern of rewarding unexposed three year olds who are bred to stay further than they have raced the breeding profile matters enormously. Andrew Balding is the only trainer to have won this race twice and Oisin Murphy the only jockey to have ridden two winners which tells you the big operations target the Golden Gates specifically and when an Irish raider with a top jockey arrives at a price in a race where lightly raced improvers stepping up in trip have dominated the short history of the contest the angle is clear. The round course over a mile and two furlongs at Ascot rewards horses who travel smoothly through the field before quickening in the straight and Foley’s ability to sit and deliver is precisely the riding style this race has been won with year after year.
Bayaann has Cieren Fallon in the saddle and the son of six time champion jockey Kieren Fallon has been quietly building his reputation at this meeting with rides across the card that show the weighing room respects his ability even if the market has not yet caught up. At 14/1 from the Haggas yard, strong chance of getting in and around the places.
There is no better way to close five days of RHR Royal Ascot picks than with the combination that has defined the week. Joseph O’Brien arrived at this meeting having already won at the Cheltenham Festival, the Grand National Festival, the Chester Cup and the Epsom Oaks and by Saturday afternoon he had added a one two in the Ascot Stakes and a Queen’s Vase victory to a 2026 campaign that has spanned jumps and flat, England and Ireland, Cheltenham and Epsom and now Royal Ascot in a display of training brilliance that puts him alongside any handler operating anywhere in the world right now. Dylan Browne McMonagle has been his weapon throughout. The reigning Irish champion jockey won the Oaks at Epsom from last to first on Thundering On thirteen days before the royal meeting and then came to Ascot and delivered the Queen’s Vase on Limestone with the kind of ice cold tactical ride that has become his signature. Now they bring A Piece Of Heaven to the longest race at Royal Ascot, the two mile five furlong Queen Alexandra Stakes, and this is not a horse arriving here on a whim. He won the Chester Cup over two miles two furlongs at the Roodee in May under McMonagle who said afterwards that the horse has a big stride and that the step up in trip was always going to bring out more improvement. Connections identified the Queen Alexandra as the next target before the Chester Cup confetti had even settled and former Racing Post chief executive Alan Byrne, who is part of the winning syndicate, said the dream is the Melbourne Cup but plan B is very satisfactory. This is a horse with a future mapped out across the staying division of three continents and Saturday afternoon at Ascot is the next step on that journey. McMonagle knows this horse inside out having won on him at Chester where he said he was always in control of the race and just had to gather him up and get the leader. He is a hold up rider whose composure in the closing stages of a staying race is arguably unmatched by any jockey of his generation and when Joseph O’Brien points a proven stayer at a staying prize with his champion jockey aboard at the end of a week where everything they have touched has turned to gold the only question left to ask is why the market is offering 7/1. Five days, seven races a day, a pick in every race and the final selection is the combination that has defined the meeting. This is how you close Royal Ascot. Thank you for staying with us all week!
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