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Clerk of the course Chris Stickels has had little to do this week other than put 5mm of water on overnight. It’s a case of going … going … gone the same again virtually today, as we warned at the beginning of the week. It’s baking and will be through to the end of the meeting on Saturday so there’s little change with the stands’ side a little bit faster and the high numbers may be favoured in the 5pm today.
So it’s Good to Firm on the straight course and Good to Firm, good in places on the round course.
GoingStick (basically the higher the number the faster the surface) at 8am:
Stands’ side: 8.9
Centre: 8.5
Far side: 8.7
Round: 7.1
Good morning. Before we get to the action on the track all the talk yesterday in the real world outside the “Ascot bubble” was about the fact that the Princess of Wales became a non-runner “at the last minute” after she was announced as part of the royal procession at 12 noon as is traditional by Ascot, only for the track to hastily send out a revised list of who was going to be in the royal carriages with Catherine not among those involved about 20 minutes later. It appears human error was the likely cause of the confusion, not a last-minute decision as it appeared to be at lunchtime yesterday with the two lists being sent out so close to each other.
The Telegraph’s royal watcher Hannah Furness states this morning that “in the hours ahead of the procession Kensington Palace confirmed that the Princess would be unable to attend” and a clue as to why that was correct was contained in the Daily Mail this morning with Royal Editor Hannah English stating “it was a case of crossed wires”. “It is understood an ‘inaccurate version of the list’ was ‘issued in error’”, she added.
Preamble
Greg Wood
Welcome to Ascot on what the track itself likes to call the third day of the Royal meeting, and everyone else knows and loves as Ladies’ Day, with the Gold Cup as the centrepiece of the action at 4.20pm (all times BST).
I must confess that I’d been racing at the Royal meeting for nigh on 40 years without realising that while courses the length and breadth of Britain have jumped on the bandwagon and branded one day each summer as their “Ladies’ Day”, Ascot has never had an official one and probably never will.
“We don’t have a Ladies’ Day, believe it or not, and we never have,” Nick Smith, the track’s director of racing and public affairs, told me last week. “It’s not in any marketing, it’s not promoted as Ladies’ Day, it’s the public that have called it Ladies’ Day.
“There’s never been a “best-dressed” competition, it’s more of an organic fashion show because that’s what the best milliners and couture houses in the world want it to be. We have a ‘Look Book’, but that’s very much to showcase modern styles which are within the dress code.”
From my perspective at least, the Look Book would have been more use than the form book in terms of finding winners over the first two days of the meeting, but I remain unbowed with more than half of the Royal meeting still in front of us and I’m very keen on the chance of up-and-coming French stayer Candelari in the Gold Cup itself. Illinois, another four-year-old, is likely to set off as favourite, while the veteran Trawlerman is also prominent in the betting.
Elsewhere on the card, one of the big Aidan O’Brien bankers of the week, Charles Darwin, is currently a shade of odds-on for the opening Norfolk Stakes at 2.30pm, Catalina Delcarpio and Serenity Prayer are vying for favouritism in the Ribblesdale Stakes at 3.40pm and a daunting field of 29 runners will thunder down the straight course in the Britannia Handicap at 5pm.
The official going at Ascot remains as it was yesterday evening, ie good-to-firm on the straight course and good-to-firm, good in places on the round and the live blog, as ever, will be your guide through all the action from first to last.
English (US)