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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Tony Paley, with Greg Wood at Ascot

Royal Ascot 2025: Lazzat wins then gives Doyle the runaround on day five – as it happened

Royal (Organization) Ascot Royal Ascot (Facility)
James Doyle looks on towards Lazzat after being unseated following victory in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot.
James Doyle looks on towards Lazzat after being unseated following victory in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot. Photograph: David Davies/PA

Greg Wood's report from Royal Ascot

Enjoy Greg’s report on the final day of this year’s meeting.

So farewell then, Royal Ascot 2025. That’s the end of five days of sparkling action on and off the track. All the prizes have been handed out and the big winner is … Ascot. Crowds have gone up 5% year on year and I’ve never heard so much praise for the meeting as I have done this year. I went yesterday and have to say that the track is getting so much right. It’s been a sea of optimism in an ocean of despair overall for racing.

Part of its appeal lies in the traditions that they keep going. Like the Queen Alexandra Stakes, the final race at the meeting which was nearly lost back in the 1990s, and the bandstand signing at the end of the day which was only started in the 1970s by the wife of the then clerk of the course. Some were sniffy about it and now it’s integral to the meeting as I found out on Friday singing ‘Sweet Caroline’, ‘Cant Take My Eyes Off You’ and, of course, the socialist anthem Jerusalem, which is always part of the repertoire. Hope you managed to find a few winners and look forward to the next racing blog. Good luck with all your punting between now and then.

6.10pm QUEEN ALEXANDRA STAKES result: raise a glass to Sober

1 Sober (R L Moore) 4-5 Fav
2 Samui (C T Keane) 10-3
3 Wild Waves (Oisin Murphy) 11-1
9 ran
Non Runners: 5,9

6.10pm QUEEN ALEXANDRA STAKES

And they’re off … for the longest race in the Flat racing calendar … Trooper Bisdee is prominent … Dallas Star leads after the first half mile … Scottish Anthem is close up… the hot favourite Sober is just behind … and in last lace is Wild Waves as they pass the stands with a circuit to go … no change in the order as they head around the back straight though Toby Tops is losing ground and looks well beaten … a mile to go … Sober is travelling very well in third spot … on the home turn and Ryan Moore is poised to challenge on the favourite … Ryan Moore is waiting to pounce … he goes for it and he goes clear on Sober to win very easily.

Updated

Ryan Moore has won the Top Jockey award at Royal Ascot.

The John Gosden and Thady Gosden team have won the Royal Ascot champion trainer prize

Lest we forget ... and everybody seems to have done ... the powers that be wanted to kill off the Queen Alexandra Stakes (traditionally the last race at Royal Ascot) some 30 years ago but wine writer John Livingstone-Learmonth led a grassroots campaign to keep it going. Raise a glass to him whatever your tipple later on.

6.10pm QUEEN ALEXANDRA STAKES betting

  • Sober 10/11

  • Samui 3/1

  • Dallas Star 9/1

  • Trooper Bisdee 10/1

  • Wild Waves 12/1

  • Youthful King 33/1

  • Toby Tops 40/1

  • King Of The Road 50/1

  • Scottish Anthem 150/1

  • Full betting at Oddschecker: horse-racing/royal-ascot/18:10/winner

6.10pm QUEEN ALEXANDRA STAKES preview

The traditional unique test of the one-and-three-quarter mile Queen Alex to close out the meeting, and while Joseph O’Brien, the winning trainer in 2023 and 2024, does not field a runner this year, Willie Mullins, who took it in 2021 and 22, does, and his six-year-old gelding Sober, a recent arrival at the stable from André Fabre, is likely to set off at a shade of odds-on. He was a winner on his debut for Mullins over hurdles at Killarney in May and his form for his former trainer includes a couple of Group Two wins over staying trips in 2023, so his form is rock-solid. The familiar Mullins vs Gordon Elliott narrative from so many races over jumps in recent years gets an outing on the Flat here as his main market rival is Samui, who ran well into third in the Copper Horse Handicap on the opening day, but even that form gives him something to find with Sober if he is anywhere close to his best.

SELECTION: SOBER

5.35pm GOLDEN GATES STAKES HANDICAP result: Bethune bags it

1 Quai De Bethune (Oisin Murphy) 12-1
2 Seraph Gabriel (Rossa Ryan) 11-4 Fav
3 Best Secret (James Doyle) 4-1
15 ran
Non Runners: 2,15

Updated

5.35pm GOLDEN GATES STAKES HANDICAP

And they’re off … Seraph Gabriel broke well and Norwegian challenger War Socks has the lead as they head for halfway … Roosevelt is with him … turning for home and Ernst Blofeld is being pushed along … Seraph Gabriel comes with a huge run but is caught at the line by Quai De Bethune.

Updated

5.35pm GOLDEN GATES STAKES HANDICAP betting

  • Seraph Gabriel 5/2

  • Best Secret 9/2

  • Dakota Blue 132

  • Glen To Glen 15/2

  • Quai De Bethune 10/1

  • Ernst Blofield 11/1

  • El Burhan 12/1

  • Tycoon 16/1

  • Roosevelt 20/1

  • Brindavan 28/1

  • Aurel 28/1

  • 33/1 BAR

  • Full betting via Oddschecker horse-racing/royal-ascot/17:35/winner

5.35pm GOLDEN GATES STAKES HANDICAP preview

We are very much into the final furlong of this year’s Royal meeting when the Golden Gates Handicap rolls around, but it has been relatively friendly to the punters since its arrival on the schedule in 2020 with two winning favourites at 9-4 and 5-2, including Hand Of God, who did the backers a big favour when landing a gamble 12 months ago. Plenty of punters are putting their faith in Ralph Beckett’s Seraph Gabriel this time around, and the form of his close second behind Fifth Column at Sandown in April looks more solid after the winner there ran seventh, and first home on his side, in Thursday’s Britannia Handicap. Best Secret, a rare French raider in an Ascot handicap, did well to overcome a pace bias in a similar contest at Longchamp in April and is a recent recruit to the Wathnan Racing operation, while Glen To Glen has a new trainer in Joseph O’Brien after running for Jim Bolger when third at Leopardstown in March. He is up just 2lb and has a top rider in Dylan Browne McMonagle in place of an inexperienced apprentice. Ernst Blofeld is yet another recent Wathnan purchase, and also very much in the mix after finishing a close fourth in the London Gold Cup at Newbury in mid-May, with two next-time winners in behind.

SELECTION: ERNST BLOFELD

5pm WOKINGHAM STAKES HANDICAP result: Get It gets home first

1 Get It (J A Heffernan) 28-1
2 More Thunder (Tom Marquand) 3-1 Fav
3 Ten Pounds (T E Whelan) 18-1
4 Holkham Bay (Brandon Wilkie) 28-1
28 ran
Non Runner: 8

Updated

5pm WOKINGHAM STAKES HANDICAP

And they’re off … Noble Truth is out quick but Get It leads down the middle as they head to halfway … Desert Cop is up there … Get it still leads incredibly near the line … and has actually lead all the way … what a performance!

Updated

5pm WOKINGHAM STAKES HANDICAP betting

  • More Thunder 4/1

  • Jarraaf 6/1

  • Aramram 6/1

  • Completely Random 9/1

  • Pursoangue 12/1

  • Zoum Zoum 12/1

  • Woodhay Wonder 16/1

  • Orazio 18/1

  • Holkham Bay 20/1

  • Get It 22/1

  • Ten Pounds 22/1

  • 22/1 BAR - 28 Starters

  • Full betting at Oddschecker: horse-racing/royal-ascot/17:00/winner

Updated

5pm WOKINGHAM STAKES HANDICAP preview

Where to start with the Wokingham, the last big handicap of the Royal meeting and a potential week-saver for punters who are on the ropes after four-and-a-half days? After two winners from stall one on day four, even the draw is not cut-and-dried (although I suspect that the high numbers may still be the place to be). But there is at least a short-priced favourite to consider, almost as short, in fact, as the favourite for the Group One sprint over the same trip earlier on the card. More Thunder got up late to win a hot race at Newmarket’s Guineas meeting having been run off his feet in the early part of the race, and looks sure to be suited by the stiff six at Ascot off a 6lb higher mark.

Aramram, the runner-up there and re-opposing today, was a winner next time up to give the form a really solid look, while Purosangue, in seventh, had a very sympathetic ride and still finished within two lengths of the winner. Purosangue ran mainly in Pattern company last year, including the five-furlong Group One sprint on the opening day of this meeting, and is 8lb better off with More Thunder today having been dropped 2lb since that run. I fancy him to run a big race with Oisin Murphy doing the steering from stall 22, although a long list of very plausible opponents includes Jarraaf, second in a Group Three over track and trip last autumn, and Orazio, sixth and third in this race over the last two years and 1lb lower in the weights compared to 2024.

SELECTION: PUROSANGUE

ITV racing presenter Francesa Cumani: “Is it weird that the only thing I’m thinking is … is Luke Harvey wearing his boxer shorts?”

4.20pm JERSEY STAKES result: Noble proves champion!

1 Noble Champion (K Shoemark) 25-1
2 Spy Chief (R Havlin) 20-1
3 Comanche Brave (R L Moore) 11-4 Fav
15 ran

4.20pm JERSEY STAKES

And they’re off … Dhitjari and Spy Chief are out quickly … Remmooz is towards the back as they enter the final two furlongs … Spy Chief is tackled by Noble Champion who kicks clear for a smooth win.

Updated

By the way French trainer Jerome Reynier, trainer of today’s big-race winner Lazzat, launched an extraordinary attack on his US-based compatriot Flavien Prat, who rode stable star Facteur Cheval to be sixth behind Ombudsman in Wednesday’s Group One Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

He told the Racing Post: “I think it was perhaps the worst ride given to one of my horses since I became a trainer. In a race with loads of pace, he elected to lead the chase [of the pacemaker]. He was the first to commit on the turn for home and launched his attack three wide with no cover and too far out.

“He thought he was at Santa Anita or Del Mar where they have short straights and the tracks are flat, and I don’t think it was a judicious move to use a jockey who rides in that style.”

4.20pm JERSEY STAKES betting

  • Commanche Brave 10/3

  • Remmooz 7/2

  • Marvelman 4/1

  • Saracen 12/1

  • Benevento 16/1

  • Spy Chief 20/1

  • Seagulls Eleven 25/1

  • Brian 25/1

  • One Smack Mac 33/1

  • BAR 40/1 - 15 Starters

  • Full betting at Oddschecker: horse-racing/royal-ascot/16:20/winner

  • 27% of all bets today on Commache Brave

4.20pm JERSEY STAKES preview

A familiar mix in the Jersey of runners dropping back in trip and class after failing to measure up in a Guineas, and progressive, lightly-raced types that may improve past them on their way to betting things. Ya Mo Be there, Benevento and Seagulls Eleven all ran in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, finishing eighth, 10th and last of 11 respectively, but California Dreamer is definitely a runner on his form in the Irish equivalent, where he outran odds of 50-1 to finish second, with Comanche Brave, today’s favourite, back in fifth. The obvious potential improvers, meanwhile, are Marvelman, for the Andrew Balding/Oisin Murphy combo, and Owen Burrows’s Remmooz, who made a successful racecourse debut in April and then followed up in a novice at Doncaster earlier this month.

SELECTION: REMMOOZ

Updated

Lazzat update: the horse has been caught!

Updated

Lazzat, the winner of the big race, is currently loose after unshipping James Doyle after the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

3.40pm QUEEN ELIZABETH II JUBILEE STAKES result: Lazzat whizzes home

1 Lazzat (James Doyle) 9-2
2 Satono Reve (J Moreira) 2-1 Fav
3 Flora Of Bermuda (P J McDonald) 12-1
14 ran
Non Runner: 6
Withdrawn: No 10 Sajir (22-1) not under orders. Rule 4 does not apply. No deductions.

Updated

3.40pm QUEEN ELIZABETH II JUBILEE STAKES

Sajir withdrawn at the start! And they’re off … Lazzat has the lead but Satono Reve is up there … here he comes with his push … he’s challenging Lazzat … but Lazzat gets that and I think James Doyle pulled that off by keeping down the middle of the track while the favourite didn’t get enough of a pull into the race on the inside!

Updated

3.40 QUEEN ELIZABETH II JUBILEE STAKES betting

  • Satono Reve 2/1

  • Inisherin 4/1

  • Topgear 5/1

  • Lazzat 6/1

  • Storm Boy 12/1

  • Flora Of Bermuda 14/1

  • Elite Status 25/1

  • Sajir 25/1

  • Great Generation 33/1

  • 40/1 BAR - 15 Starters

  • Full betting via Oddscheker: horse-racing/royal-ascot/15:40/winner

  • 12 of the 13 biggest single win bets have been on Satono Reve or Inisherin

3.40 QUEEN ELIZABETH II JUBILEE STAKES preview

A truly international renewal of the final day’s feature event, which brings together the best sprinting form lines from France, Britain, Asia and Australia in a six-furlong dash on fast racing ground. Timeform’s ratings have Lazzat, who is very weak in the market so far today, at the top of the pile, a couple of pounds ahead of Inisherin, last year’s Commonwealth Cup winner, and Topgear, an impressive winner – over seven furlongs - at Longchamp last time, with Satono Reve and Flora Of Bermuda a further 1lb behind. The races to consider most closely when weighing up the likely winner include the Hong Kong Sprint at Sha Tin in December, the Prix du Palais-Royal at Longchamp last month and the Duke Of York at York, also last month, and while I’m very hopeful that Satono Reve will get a first ever Japanese victory at the Royal meeting on the board, it is a wide-open race and feels every bit as competitive as the Wokingham Handicap over the same trip later on the card.

SELECTION: SATONO REVE.

Hong Kong Sprint, Sha Tin, 8 Dec 24 (Satono Reve).
https://youtu.be/OgaXbSrOgAI?si=h6q9LgS9vwUPqWut

Chairman’s Sprint, Sha Tin 27 Apr 25 (Satono Reve).
https://youtu.be/7MB7qsFCdMs?si=0e_Vc66LbLN97XV8

Prix Maurice Du Gheest, Deauville 4 Aug 24 (Lazzat, Flora Of Bermuda, Great Generation).
https://youtu.be/cUJoEzW8jG8?si=eTbGE4qI6P4zLMP4

Duke Of York Stakes, York 14 May 25 (Inisherin, Flora Of Bermuda, Elite Status).
https://youtu.be/mbAGWEG1u00?si=aR8P91j4RPcnOwhi

Commonwealth Cup, Ascot 21 Jun 24 (Inisherin).
https://youtu.be/Heqsk-110Xs?si=XpAlzMhwHLBBfGqf

San Domenico Stakes, Rosehill 31 Aug 24 (Storm Boy)
https://youtu.be/MpZHfAS5cEw?si=x0EI1VGoTyupy2GL

Golden Rose, Rosehill, 28 Sept 24 (Storm Boy).
https://youtu.be/zboFBQIG63Y?feature=shared

Prix du Palais-Royal, Longchamp 25 May 25 (Topgear, Sajir).
https://youtu.be/CY3BVSUZNHw?si=ilknivsfyiGLeIqq

British Champions Sprint Stakes, Ascot, 19 Oct 24 (Flora Of Bermuda, James’s Delight, Elite Status)
https://youtu.be/0knDGLoOR9o?feature=shared

Hardwicke Stakes result: Rebel's helps Appleby out

1 Rebel’s Romance (W Buick) 6-4 Fav
2 Al Riffa (D McMonagle) 4-1
3 Ghostwriter (D Egan) 5-1
12 ran

Updated

3.05pm Hardwicke Stakes

And they’re off … Palladium is away quickly but Space Legend takes up the running as they make their way through the first half mile … halfway and Al Aasy is last and Rebel’s Romance is in fourth … turning for home and Rebel’s Romance makes his move … can he hold on? Yes, and at last Charlie Appleby gets that elusive Royal Ascot winner.

Updated

The rain has arrived at Ascot! It’s not heavy yet but it will be parasols down and umbrellas up after four days of wall-to-wall sunshine.

Treanmor’s dreadful run in the first race today was a reminder that trainer Charlie Appleby’s last winner at Royal Ascot was the 33-1 shot Naval Crown on the final day in 2022, and of his last 36 Royal runners, including a 5-4 favourite and two at 6-4, have all been beaten. The Newmarket handler has favourite Rebel’s Romance running for him at 15-8 in the Hardwicke Stakes next!

3.05pm HARDWICKE STAKES betting

  • Rebels Romance 15/8

  • Al Riffa 13/2

  • Ghostwriter 8/1

  • Al Aasy 9/1

  • Palladium 11/1

  • Sunway 11/1

  • Candleford 14/1

  • Space Legend 20/1

  • Bellem Justum 20/1

  • Epic Poet 28/1

  • Tabletalk 22/1

  • Burdett Road 33/1

  • Full betting via Oddschecker: horse-racing/royal-ascot/15:05/winner

  • Four of the five biggest single win bets have backed Rebels Romance to win

3.05pm HARDWICKE STAKES preview

Winning a single Group One race is a huge and very rare achievement for any thoroughbred. Winning seven is extraordinary and yet, Rebel’s Romance rarely seems to get the credit that his record deserves, perhaps because his seven top-level wins were recorded in Germany, Hong Kong, Dubai and the US, where he is a dual winner of the Breeders’ Cup Turf. He will be fancied to make a Group One breakthrough in Britain in next month’s King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, having been a solid third in the same race last season, and will be looking to set himself up for that with a win here over the same course and distance.

Comments about Charlie Appleby’s form at the meeting in relation to Treanmor in the preceding Chesham Stakes apply equally to Rebel’s Romance, but he looks a very solid favourite back at his ideal trip after his class got him home over 14 furlongs in last month’s Yorkshire Cup. Joseph O’Brien’s Al Riffa, blinkered for the first time today, is his main rival according to Timeform ratings, and he is also a multiple Group One winner having taken the National Stakes as a juvenile and the Grosser Preis von Berlin at Hoppegarten last August. He was last seen finishing a three-length fourth behind Sosie, the current favourite for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, in the Prix Ganay at Longchamp.

SELECTION: REBEL’S ROMANCE

Updated

Chesham Stakes result: Humidity is a t(r)opical winner

1 Humidity (James Doyle) 4-1
2 Thesecretadversary (J A Heffernan) 12-1
3 Moments Of Joy (R L Moore) 10-3
9 ran

2.30pm CHESHAM STAKES

And they’re off … Thesecretadversary kicks off well but Zooter is slow out of the stalls … Humidity leads into the final two furlongs … Moments Of Joy challenges with Thesecretadversary but Humidity – isn’t that appropriate given the sticky conditions at the track – stays on well to win.

Updated

2.30pm CHESHAM STAKES betting

  • Treanmor 6/4

  • Moments of Joy 3/1

  • Humidity 4/1

  • Venetian Lace 7/1

  • Thesecretadversary 12/1

  • Brave Hunter 40/1

  • Waterford Castle 40/1

  • Tailgunner Joe 50/1

  • Zooter 50/1

  • Full betting at Oddschecker: horse-racing/royal-ascot/14:30/winner

  • 44% of total bets on Oddschecker have been on Treanmor to win

2.30pm CHESHAM STAKES preview

Aidan O’Brien has won five of the last nine runnings of this race, and two of those wins were with fillies that won the same Leopardstown maiden that Moments Of Joy, his only runner this year, took just over a fortnight ago. That clearly makes her a major player, but she is not the favourite, as Godolphin’s main trainer, Charlie Appleby, has picked this race out as the next step for Treanmor, an eye-wateringly expensive yearling at last October’s sales who made short work of his field on debut at Newmarket last month. Appleby has been having a difficult time of it so far this week, drawing a blank with 10 runners so far, and in fact at the Royal meeting full stop in recent seasons. His last winner here was the 33-1 shot Naval Crown on the final day in 2022, and his last 36 Royal runners, including a 5-4 favourite and two at 6-4, have all been beaten. It’s fair to say he could do with a change of fortune.

Another runner who deserves a mention is Humidity, not least as he is a full brother to Holloway Boy, the 40-1 winner of this race in 2022. That, unusually for a Royal winner, was Holloway Boy’s racecourse debut, but his bro has had a run, scraping home by a short-head in a maiden at Newbury before being sold to the ever-expanding Wathnan Racing operation.

SELECTION: TREANMOR

Updated

6.10pm QUEEN ALEXANDRA STAKES preview

The traditional unique test of the one-and-three-quarter mile Queen Alex to close out the meeting, and while Joseph O’Brien, the winning trainer in 2023 and 2024, does not field a runner this year, Willie Mullins, who took it in 2021 and 22, does, and his six-year-old gelding Sober, a recent arrival at the stable from André Fabre, is likely to set off at a shade of odds-on. He was a winner on his debut for Mullins over hurdles at Killarney in May and his form for his former trainer includes a couple of Group Two wins over staying trips in 2023, so his form is rock-solid. The familiar Mullins vs Gordon Elliott narrative from so many races over jumps in recent years gets an outing on the Flat here as his main market rival is Samui, who ran well into third in the Copper Horse Handicap on the opening day, but even that form gives him something to find with Sober if he is anywhere close to his best.

SELECTION: SOBER

5.35pm GOLDEN GATES STAKES HANDICAP preview

We are very much into the final furlong of this year’s Royal meeting when the Golden Gates Handicap rolls around, but it has been relatively friendly to the punters since its arrival on the schedule in 2020 with two winning favourites at 9-4 and 5-2, including Hand Of God, who did the backers a big favour when landing a gamble 12 months ago. Plenty of punters are putting their faith in Ralph Beckett’s Seraph Gabriel this time around, and the form of his close second behind Fifth Column at Sandown in April looks more solid after the winner there ran seventh, and first home on his side, in Thursday’s Britannia Handicap. Best Secret, a rare French raider in an Ascot handicap, did well to overcome a pace bias in a similar contest at Longchamp in April and is a recent recruit to the Wathnan Racing operation, while Glen To Glen has a new trainer in Joseph O’Brien after running for Jim Bolger when third at Leopardstown in March. He is up just 2lb and has a top rider in Dylan Browne McMonagle in place of an inexperienced apprentice. Ernst Blofeld is yet another recent Wathnan purchase, and also very much in the mix after finishing a close fourth in the London Gold Cup at Newbury in mid-May, with two next-time winners in behind.

SELECTION: ERNST BLOFELD

Updated

5pm WOKINGHAM STAKES HANDICAP preview

Where to start with the Wokingham, the last big handicap of the Royal meeting and a potential week-saver for punters who are on the ropes after four-and-a-half days? After two winners from stall one on day four, even the draw is not cut-and-dried (although I suspect that the high numbers may still be the place to be). But there is at least a short-priced favourite to consider, almost as short, in fact, as the favourite for the Group One sprint over the same trip earlier on the card. More Thunder got up late to win a hot race at Newmarket’s Guineas meeting having been run off his feet in the early part of the race, and looks sure to be suited by the stiff six at Ascot off a 6lb higher mark.

Aramram, the runner-up there and re-opposing today, was a winner next time up to give the form a really solid look, while Purosangue, in seventh, had a very sympathetic ride and still finished within two lengths of the winner. Purosangue ran mainly in Pattern company last year, including the five-furlong Group One sprint on the opening day of this meeting, and is 8lb better off with More Thunder today having been dropped 2lb since that run. I fancy him to run a big race with Oisin Murphy doing the steering from stall 22, although a long list of very plausible opponents includes Jarraaf, second in a Group Three over track and trip last autumn, and Orazio, sixth and third in this race over the last two years and 1lb lower in the weights compared to 2024.

SELECTION: PUROSANGUE

Market movers (via Oddschecker)

3.40pm - Santono Reve 4/1 into 5/2
5.35pm - Sallaal 8/1 into 9/2
6.10pm - Samui 9/2 into 5/2

Horse racing fans, whether watching on ITV or the dedicated racing channels, will now be familiar with the gastronomic delights served up to the presenters at our major meetings by the chefs working at the tracks in those long hours to fill before the action starts. Indeed, as I write this David “my mouth is already watering” Craig on Sky Sports News is already sampling one such dish.

On Friday I had my first experience of the Royal Enclosure and having seen the inspiring Raymond Blanc over the years I was delighted to be able to meet the great man, now a decade into his time as the resident chef in the prime dining spot at Ascot, the Panoramic Restaurant. I expected a short chat but 52 minutes later, after an absorbing interview accompanied by an exquisite salmon and caviar dish produced with the help of the “molecular gastronomy” he first introduced in the early 1980s, I pressed the stop button on the recording.

Blanc had wanted to be part of the Royal Ascot experience since the late Queen Mother, who the Frenchman had persuaded to sing La Marseillaise in his famous Oxford restaurant kitchen, invited him to the meeting in 1981 and has spoken of the meeting’s “extraordinary elegance, beauty, fun and joy”.

Blanc’s passions now, he explained on Friday, and what he calls “the pillars of my values” are “seasonality – the best produce of the season sourced as close to home as possible” and a change he wants to see at his top-end of fine dining, what he terms “responsible luxury”.

He is putting this into practice at his two Michelin-starred restaurant near Oxford, Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, with, among other things a bee village, organic farm and medicinal herb garden.

“The luxury market is going to be so different. It will have a conscience. Luxury by nature has always been careless and bad for the environment and for people … a gold-plated, beautiful statue with toxic values. Luxury has to change and it will change. You might accuse me of being a raving optimist and it may take years but it will happen.”

Royal Procession Stakes, 2pm

Rory Bremner is among the guests in the carriages today, hopefully providing a Peter O’Sullevan impression or two.

O’Sullevan, of course, would help describe the procession when he was commentating for the BBC and was heard, as our regular reader knows, at the Serpentine gallery exhibition by artist Mark Wallinger which I saw back in 1994 when one of his installations, called ‘Royal Ascot’, consisted of a series of video monitors on top of wheeled flight cases, each isolating the royal carriage’s leisurely progress down the track on the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (respectively, as it was then) of the meeting with, as the British Council points out in their description of the artwork, “the difference from day to day is barely discernible, just as the four commentaries merge in a confused blather.”

Updated

4.20pm JERSEY STAKES preview

A familiar mix in the Jersey of runners dropping back in trip and class after failing to measure up in a Guineas, and progressive, lightly-raced types that may improve past them on their way to betting things. Ya Mo Be there, Benevento and Seagulls Eleven all ran in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, finishing eighth, 10th and last of 11 respectively, but California Dreamer is definitely a runner on his form in the Irish equivalent, where he outran odds of 50-1 to finish second, with Comanche Brave, today’s favourite, back in fifth. The obvious potential improvers, meanwhile, are Marvelman, for the Andrew Balding/Oisin Murphy combo, and Owen Burrows’s Remmooz, who made a successful racecourse debut in April and then followed up in a novice at Doncaster earlier this month.

SELECTION: REMMOOZ

Updated

3.40 QUEEN ELIZABETH II JUBILEE STAKES preview

A truly international renewal of the final day’s feature event, which brings together the best sprinting form lines from France, Britain, Asia and Australia in a six-furlong dash on fast racing ground. Timeform’s ratings have Lazzat, who is very weak in the market so far today, at the top of the pile, a couple of pounds ahead of Inisherin, last year’s Commonwealth Cup winner, and Topgear, an impressive winner – over seven furlongs - at Longchamp last time, with Satono Reve and Flora Of Bermuda a further 1lb behind. The races to consider most closely when weighing up the likely winner include the Hong Kong Sprint at Sha Tin in December, the Prix du Palais-Royal at Longchamp last month and the Duke Of York at York, also last month, and while I’m very hopeful that Satono Reve will get a first ever Japanese victory at the Royal meeting on the board, it is a wide-open race and feels every bit as competitive as the Wokingham Handicap over the same trip later on the card.

SELECTION: SATONO REVE.

Hong Kong Sprint, Sha Tin, 8 Dec 24 (Satono Reve).
https://youtu.be/OgaXbSrOgAI?si=h6q9LgS9vwUPqWut

Chairman’s Sprint, Sha Tin 27 Apr 25 (Satono Reve).
https://youtu.be/7MB7qsFCdMs?si=0e_Vc66LbLN97XV8

Prix Maurice Du Gheest, Deauville 4 Aug 24 (Lazzat, Flora Of Bermuda, Great Generation).
https://youtu.be/cUJoEzW8jG8?si=eTbGE4qI6P4zLMP4

Duke Of York Stakes, York 14 May 25 (Inisherin, Flora Of Bermuda, Elite Status).
https://youtu.be/mbAGWEG1u00?si=aR8P91j4RPcnOwhi

Commonwealth Cup, Ascot 21 Jun 24 (Inisherin).
https://youtu.be/Heqsk-110Xs?si=XpAlzMhwHLBBfGqf

San Domenico Stakes, Rosehill 31 Aug 24 (Storm Boy)
https://youtu.be/MpZHfAS5cEw?si=x0EI1VGoTyupy2GL

Golden Rose, Rosehill, 28 Sept 24 (Storm Boy).
https://youtu.be/zboFBQIG63Y?feature=shared

Prix du Palais-Royal, Longchamp 25 May 25 (Topgear, Sajir).
https://youtu.be/CY3BVSUZNHw?si=ilknivsfyiGLeIqq

British Champions Sprint Stakes, Ascot, 19 Oct 24 (Flora Of Bermuda, James’s Delight, Elite Status)
https://youtu.be/0knDGLoOR9o?feature=shared

3.05pm HARDWICKE STAKES preview

Winning a single Group One race is a huge and very rare achievement for any thoroughbred. Winning seven is extraordinary and yet, Rebel’s Romance rarely seems to get the credit that his record deserves, perhaps because his seven top-level wins were recorded in Germany, Hong Kong, Dubai and the US, where he is a dual winner of the Breeders’ Cup Turf. He will be fancied to make a Group One breakthrough in Britain in next month’s King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, having been a solid third in the same race last season, and will be looking to set himself up for that with a win here over the same course and distance.

Comments about Charlie Appleby’s form at the meeting in relation to Treanmor in the preceding Chesham Stakes apply equally to Rebel’s Romance, but he looks a very solid favourite back at his ideal trip after his class got him home over 14 furlongs in last month’s Yorkshire Cup. Joseph O’Brien’s Al Riffa, blinkered for the first time today, is his main rival according to Timeform ratings, and he is also a multiple Group One winner having taken the National Stakes as a juvenile and the Grosser Preis von Berlin at Hoppegarten last August. He was last seen finishing a three-length fourth behind Sosie, the current favourite for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, in the Prix Ganay at Longchamp.

SELECTION: REBEL’S ROMANCE

Updated

2.30pm CHESHAM STAKES preview

Aidan O’Brien has won five of the last nine runnings of this race, and two of those wins were with fillies that won the same Leopardstown maiden that Moments Of Joy, his only runner this year, took just over a fortnight ago. That clearly makes her a major player, but she is not the favourite, as Godolphin’s main trainer, Charlie Appleby, has picked this race out as the next step for Treanmor, an eye-wateringly expensive yearling at last October’s sales who made short work of his field on debut at Newmarket last month. Appleby has been having a difficult time of it so far this week, drawing a blank with 10 runners so far, and in fact at the Royal meeting full stop in recent seasons. His last winner here was the 33-1 shot Naval Crown on the final day in 2022, and his last 36 Royal runners, including a 5-4 favourite and two at 6-4, have all been beaten. It’s fair to say he could do with a change of fortune.

Another runner who deserves a mention is Humidity, not least as he is a full brother to Holloway Boy, the 40-1 winner of this race in 2022. That, unusually for a Royal winner, was Holloway Boy’s racecourse debut, but his bro has had a run, scraping home by a short-head in a maiden at Newbury before being sold to the ever-expanding Wathnan Racing operation.

SELECTION: TREANMOR

The going for day five of is, surprise surprise, Good to Firm

GoingStick (the higher the figure the faster the ground) at 8.30am:
Stands’ side: 8.8
Centre: 8.5
Far side: 8.8
Round: 7.4

The jockeys switched sides yesterday so, as Tom Collins pointed out on ITV Racing this morning, it’s difficult to gauge which side of the track will be favoured. That’s not much help but it’s the honest answer!

Non-runners

3.40pm Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes (Group 1)
6 James’s Delight (unsuitable ground)

5.00pm Wokingham Stakes (Heritage Handicap)
8 Symbol Of Honour ( temperature)

5.35pm Golden Gates Stakes
15 The King’s Falcon (bad scope)

Updated

Good morning. And after yesterday’s sojourn to Ascot in my finery (of which more later) here’s the run down of today’s action and after ginving you the going and non-runner details I will start publishing Greg Wood’s previews of all the races.

2.30pm - Chesham Stakes (7f)
3.05pm - Hardwicke Stakes (1m 4f)
3.40pm - Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes (6f)
4.20pm - Jersey Stakes (7f)
5.00pm - Wokingham Stakes (Heritage Handicap) (6f)
5.35pm - Golden Gates Stakes (Handicap) (1m 2f)
6.10pm - Queen Alexandra Stakes (2m 6f)

Preamble

Welcome back to Ascot on the fifth bright, warm morning in a row at this year’s Royal meeting, on a day when the biggest crowd of the week might just witness a moment of racing history in the afternoon’s feature event, the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes (3.40pm).

Japan has become one of global racing’s powerhouses over the last quarter of a century, winning major races on all continents and often bringing plenty of travelling fans along for the ride. Their record at Royal Ascot, however, and in fact, at Ascot full stop, is a tale of woe, with the occasional near-miss along the way.

Agnes World, the first Japanese-trained runner at the meeting, finished second, beaten just over a length, in what was then the Group Two King’s Stand Stakes, when he was giving weight to his 22 rivals (and in his next race, won the Group One July Cup, the summer sprinting championship). One of his stable companions finished 22nd in the same race, and since then, only one of 10 runners from Japan has even reached the first five (Shahryar, in the 2022 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes).

In Noriyuki Hori’s Satono Reve, though, the country has one of its strongest contenders for years, and riding legend Joao Moreira has flown in to take the reins. The six-year-old has form that puts him within a length or two of Ka Ying Rising, the top-rated sprinter in global racing, and has been given plenty of time to get used to his new surroundings having arrived in Newmarket in early May.

I think he could be the horse to finally break Japan’s duck here, and the market seems to agree as he has been backed from 9-2 to 5-2 favourite this morning. Inisherin, last year’s winner of the Commonwealth Cup here, is next in on 9-2, and in a truly international field, two French-trained runners, Lazzat and Topgear, are next in at 5-1 and 6-1 respectively.

The Jersey Stakes (4.20pm), for three-year-olds over seven furlongs, and the Hardwicke Stakes, over a mile-and-a-half and a race that has often been a stepping stone to the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes here in July, are the main supporting races on today’s card, along with the ever-popular Wokingham Handicap at 5pm.

The going remains good-to-firm all over after further watering last night, and temperatures are expected to climb towards 30C as the afternoon goes on, which should ensure that the track is bursting at the seams by the time the royal procession makes its way down the track just before 2pm. The attendance has been up on every day of the meeting so far – it was an 8% jump on Friday – and there is every chance the course will complete a full house today, for the second year in a row.

John & Thady Gosden are tied at five apiece in the race to be top trainer, Oisin Murphy is just two wins behind Ryan Moore after taking the last race here on Friday and you can follow all the action and slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as the 2025 Royal meeting draws to a close right here on the Guardian’s live blog.

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