Handicap Focus

Don't mention the draw. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it! 

Just as the visit of group of our Germanic friends and erstwhile enemies had Basil Fawlty tying himself in knots in Torquay all those years ago, so too does the effect of track position on the straight course at Ascot. My nearly three decades of watching races there have convinced me that, on balance and over time, high numbers are favoured over low.

However, as my HKJC World Pool colleague Graham Cunningham wryly put it to me at Epsom the other week, there is nothing jockeys like more than a small statistical sample, so as soon as something slightly out of the ordinary happens from a draw perspective then the weighing room conventional wisdom can flip and what you think ought to happen doesn't and what shouldn't happen does. 

What remains an immutable law of mathematics, though, is that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Therefore, when it comes to the Royal Hunt Cup (17.00), I will be siding with three near the stands' side and one over on the far side whose gate means they shouldn’t need to lurch about to latch on to one group or another. 

EBT’S GUARD ran a very solid race in this last year when drawn in the middle of the track and off only 2lbs higher is gated to go much better in stall 32. He is such a likable and consistent horse and his price at the time of writing - 33/1 - is nothing short of an insult. 

Others on the grandstand rail to include are recent Newmarket winner ERZINDJAN - with Ryan Moore up from stall 24- and the progressive SHOUT from gate 26. From the cohort drawn low I will be with HOLLOWAY BOY, who won the Chesham on his racecourse debut back in 2022 and ran well here in a listed race on trials day. I’ll be backing EBT’S GUARD in a single and perming the other four in those chunky World Pool exotics.

The Kensington Palace Stakes (17.35) used to be run around a bend, but was added to the roster of Royal Ascot straight course handicaps in 2024. The field for this, while still big, is not as large as the Royal Hunt Cup and it is not out of the question that they might coalesce around the middle part of the track. Maybe stupidly, I will therefore not be getting too religious about the draw. 

I will simply side with two fillies who should get the race run to suit in the shape of ALOBAYYAH - who palpably did not here last time out and looks unexposed - and OOLONG POOBONG, who ran well in the Sandringham last year and looks to have been primed for this with a spin at Thirsk.

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