There are 35 races at Royal Ascot 2025 to be savoured across five thrilling days from Tuesday June 17th – Saturday June 21st.
The Group 1s will take many of the headlines but it is high-quality action right across the board at Royal Ascot and we’ve picked out five favourites worth keeping a close eye on across the meeting.
Field Of Gold – St James’s Palace Stakes (Tuesday, June 17th)
He may have been denied in the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket last month but Field Of Gold wasted no time atoning for that seemingly luckless Rowley Mile reverse as he soared in the Irish version at the Curragh three weeks later.
The John & Thady Gosden-trained Juddmonte inmate was much too strong in Ireland with Colin Keane coming in for the ride after Kieran Shoemark was admonished for some perceived poor judgement at Newmarket previously.
The St James’s Palace Stakes looks to be the next port of call for this out-and-out miler. French Guineas winner Henri Matisse may take him on, but his Newmarket conqueror Ruling Court will be absent.
Zelaina – Queen Mary Stakes (Wednesday, June 18th)
Karl Burke regularly has forward juveniles at his disposal and won this race 12 months ago with Leovanni. There is a fair chance Zelaina could be even better still.
In the colours of Wathnan Racing, the daughter of Mehmas breezed home by a healthy margin on her debut at Nottingham, shaping as though there could be a significant amount left in the tank for tougher assignments down the line.
She defeated rivals owned by powerful operations such as Godolphin and Coolmore that day, so there is likely to be substance to that effort. At the very least, she looks one of the more exciting two-year-olds likely to run at the meeting.
Los Angeles – Prince Of Wales’s Stakes (Wednesday, June 18th)
Is there a more gutsy horse in training at the top level than Los Angeles? The Camelot colt certainly can have designs on that claim after his win in the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh in May.
That made it 2-2 on the season, having outbattled White Birch in the Mooresbridge Stakes at the Foxrock venue on his comeback.
His old foe Anmaat appeared set to take his measure again in the Tatts Gold Cup, putting his head in front in the final furlong, but Ryan Moore’s partner battled back and regained the initiative late on.
He could be an especially tough nut to crack in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes on his return to Ascot.
Zarigana – Coronation Stakes (Friday, June 20th)
Dramatic would be one word to describe the events surrounding the Poule d’Essai Des Pouliches, or French 1000 Guineas which was won by Zarigana in the stewards’ room.
Having been second past the post, domestic stewards determined that She’s Perfect, who was first past the post, denied Zarigana victory by drifting across the track. Francis-Henri Graffard’s filly therefore secured a first Group 1.
Her profile dictated that she was likely to do so at some stage, and indeed she was odds-on for that French classic. The defection of Irish Guineas heroine Lake Victoria now presents the Coronation Stakes as a great opportunity.
This has been a relatively successful race for France with three winners in the last decade and Graffard having scored with Watch Me in 2019.
Storm Boy – Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes (Saturday, June 21st)
Australian-bred and born, Storm Boy had some fine form on his CV Down Under and was snapped up for an eye-watering fee by the Coolmore operation in late 2024. He was a Group 2 winner and Group 1-placed when trained by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott in his homeland.
Aidan O’Brien was not discouraged by Storm Boy’s beaten effort on his Irish debut in the Weatherbys Ireland Greenlands Stakes at the Curragh in May.
The Justify three-year-old went off favourite but his effort flattened out after being keen early on and he was last of nine runners as Ryan Moore handled him tenderly in the latter stages.
The Ballydoyle supremo was glad to have completed a valuable fact-finding mission before Royal Ascot, suggesting his new sprinter had ‘never been galloped or worked, but we had to run him to find out what else we had to work on between now and Ascot’.
O’Brien has shown many times that a flat first-time-out run is no barrier to future success where his operation is concerned.
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