Day Four of this year’s Royal Ascot promises to be another enthralling card, with seven races to look forward to on Friday.
There are two Group 1 contests, with the Commonwealth Cup and the Coronation Stakes, with the action getting underway at 2:30 BST.
We have selected three horses to follow across Day Four.
2.30 Ascot - Albany Stakes
Friday’s action kicks off with an exciting renewal of the Albany Stakes. This is one of the few Royal Ascot two-year-old races that Wesley Ward hasn’t managed to win, but that could change this year with Burning Pine.
She won a Keeneland maiden with any amount in hand, with her jockey motionless in the straight and while that race was on dirt, there’s encouragement in her pedigree that she’ll handle the switch to turf given that her half-brother Neat, won a Grade 3 in America on grass.
The form has worked out very nicely with the runner-up landing a valuable Churchill Downs maiden subsequently and the fourth has also come out and won since.
If the step up in trip and switch to turf does bring about any improvement, she could be overpriced at double figure odds.
3.05 Ascot - Commonwealth Cup
This doesn’t look like the strongest renewal and Inisherin could be the one to take advantage.
He relished the drop back in trip when winning the Group 2 Sandy Lane at Haydock and getting the better of the champion two-year-old Vandeek.
A stiff six-furlongs could really be up his street here seeing as we know he stays further and he looks good enough to defy a low stall (1).
Starting from stall five, Jasour is another that could run a big race, with the Clive Cox-trained three-year-old a winner of a Group 3 Commonwealth Cup Trial here at Ascot in May.
3.45 Ascot - Coronation Stakes
The Coronation Stakes might be a bit more open than the betting suggests, with Opera House expected to go off a strong favourite.
The Aidan O’Brien filly has won three of her last five starts but heads to Ascot off the back of a third-place finish in the Irish 1,000 Guineas last month.
It may be worth siding instead with the French 1,000 Guineas winner, Rouhiya, at what will be a bigger price.
This daughter of Lope De Vega has been progressive and she appreciated quicker ground last time (quicker than the advertised soft), when winning at Longchamp by a head.
That’s an effort worth marking up, given that she came from an unpromising position having lost her pitch at a crucial stage in the race.
The French Classic form has been underestimated already this week, when the French 2,000 Guineas winner hit the frame at a big price in the St James’s Palace Stakes on Tuesday.
