Battaash can help light up the first day of Royal Ascot tomorrow by winning the King's Stands Stakes.
The biggest race meeting of the summer, usually attended by a total of 300,000 racegoers, will take place behind closed doors, with even the owners of the 100 runners among those not permitted to attend.
The quiet and calm will be a bonus for Battaash, trained by Charles Hills, because he can get edgy before his races. He is a five-furlong flying machine, as he again showed when landing the Nunthorpe at York last summer in a record time, and would not be winning this Group 1 prize out of turn after beating all bar the brilliant Blue Point in the past two renewals.
Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum, the owner of Battaash, can also strike with Mohaather in the Queen Anne Stakes and Mutamaasik in the Buckingham Palace Handicap, the opening race of the meeting.
Mohaather has shown flashes of brilliance in winning three of his five races and the fact Jim Crowley opted to ride him, instead of Mustashry, last year’s Lockinge winner, is a tip in itself.
Mogul can advance his English Derby claims by landing the King Edward VII Stakes, while Born With Pride is worth another chance in the Ribblesdale Stakes. She disappointed on her Kempton return but the form of her debut win could hardly have worked out better.
Jubiloso has strong claims in the Duke of Cambridge Stakes and San Benedeto is potentially well-handicapped in the Ascot Stakes.
