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Ascot weather report
Forecast: A gentle breeze will provide light relief as it’s set to be another scorching, dry day.
High: 29 degrees celsius
Low: 16 degrees celsius
Ascot going report
Official Going
The latest ground report conducted at Ascot on Friday, 20th June has the official going as Good to Firm.
GoingStick
Stands Side: 8.7
Centre: 8.4
Farside: 8.5
Round: 7.1
Tom Jenkins is our snapper on course.
The Gold Cup is the big race of the week, and the spoils went to the Gosden team.
Preamble
Welcome to Ascot on the fourth morning of Royal Ascot 2025, where the sun is shining as it has been all week, crowds are up – again – year-on-year, and there are two Group One races for the near-capacity crowd to enjoy alongside three daunting handicaps where a winner could well pay for your ticket, a bottle of bubbly and a carriage ride home.
The Coronation Stakes, for three-year-old fillies over a mile, is the feature event on the card at 4.20, and while only one of the three major 1,000 Guineas winners is in the field – Zarigana, who won in France - two unbeaten up-and-comers were added to the race at the weekend and will give her plenty to think about.
The top-rated two-year-old of 2024, Shadow Of Light, is up against 20 opponents in the day’s first Group One, the Commonwealth Cup at 3.05, while in the King Edward VII Stakes later on the card “Ascot Derby”, Ralph Beckett’s Amiloc will attempt to extend his unbeaten record to five races against another very promising colt, Johnny Murtagh’s Zahrann.
Both the straight and round courses were watered overnight – 6mm on the straight course and 5mm on the round – and the going remains good-to-firm all over, but it will be drying all the time with temperatures heading into the upper 20s again today and Leovanni, in the Commonwealth Cup, is one of four scratches so far on today’s card due to the ground.
The action is underway at the immutable time of 2.30 with the Albany Stakes, a juvenile contest that has been won by several future Group One winners in the recent past, and as ever, you can follow all the news and action as it happens, from the publication of the carriage list right through to the last horse across the line in the concluding sprint handicap, here on the Guardian’s live blog.
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