Five to follow at Ascot this week

Mabs Cross

8/1 - King’s Stand Stakes (Tuesday 3:40)

Consistent, progressive and already a Group 1 winner at five furlongs, Mabs Cross might well be underrated in the King’s Stand Stakes tomorrow. All the talk is of the second clash between Blue Point and Battaash, but Michael Dods’s mare was only a neck behind the latter in this race 12 months ago, so she deserves to be mentioned in the rematch context of any race preview.

That was her first Group 1 appearance and she acquitted herself well, closing right up on Charles Hills’s enigmatic sprinter at the line. She has since run in two more Group 1 races, going agonisingly close to winning the Nunthorpe when a nose away from Alpha Delphini and then going to win the Prix de l’Abbaye, finishing ahead of Battaash. So now, she returns to Royal Ascot a higher rated mare (115) and comes off similar preparation to last year having won the Palace House Stakes at Newmarket and finished a very respectable third in the Temple Stakes. She lost out to Battaash there, but significantly was conceding him weight because of a Group 1 penalty. She has 5lb swing today and on her fourth go at a Group 1, she looks rock solid to run another huge race.

Fun Mac

16/1 - Ascot Stakes (Tuesday 5:00)

Four of the previous seven renewals of the Ascot Stakes have gone to Willie Mullins who interestingly relies on just one entry this season. Mullins has proved potent with the jumpers he has sent back to the flat, maximising the advantages of improving horses over hurdles and then exploiting an unchanged flat mark.

However that doesn’t really apply to Buildmeupbuttercup who did start her hurdles career promisingly with Navan maiden hurdle win, but struggled thereafter, including on her latest start when she was pulled up at the Punchestown festival. She has a rating of 128 over hurdles and 91 on the flat, which doesn’t scream of a well handicapped proposition and she might just be short enough in the market now at around 4/1.

Coeur De Lion finished a good sixth in this race last season (behind four Mullins-trained runners) and off 2lbs higher and an impressive win at Chester last time, he makes plenty of appeal at 8/1, but at twice the price, Fun Mac is of more interest. Hughie Morrison’s eight-year-old finished second in this race in 2015 when he bumped into a more typical Mullins well-handicapped type in Clondaw Warrior. He was racing off a mark of 98 that day and he has basically held that level over the preceding three seasons until a couple of poor runs at the end of last term prompted the handicapper the drop him down to 93.

Promisingly, he ran fifth in the Chester Vase off that assessment, and may have done better if it weren’t for the torrential rain that turned the ground soft that day. He has since been dropped a further 2lbs to a mark of 91 which looks more than fair given the promise of that seasonal debut run and back at Royal Ascot where he has run well plenty of times, he could be very nicely handicapped.

Kimari

8/1 - Queen Mary Stakes (2:30 Wednesday)

Wesley Ward has made Royal Ascot a second home in the last decade and the Keeneland-based sprint king is surely a very short price to add to his tally of 10 winners with a strong team of juveniles set to take on Berkshire this week.

I’m not going to attempt to dissect American juvenile form but it was a bit surprising to see quotes of 8/1 about Kimari available for the Queen Mary on Wednesday. Remarkably, she won her maiden by 15 lengths at Keeneland in a time that left our expert clock watcher Simon Rowlands impressed. She has a dirt pedigree but reportedly worked very well on turf last week and significantly will have the aid of John Velazquez in the saddle. She looks worth chancing in an open renewal of this five-furlong contest for fillies.

Crystal Ocean

9/2 - Prince Of Wales’s Stakes (3:40 Wednesday)

Enable isn’t running in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes but she ties the whole race together on the form of her three previous races in which Magical, Enable and Crystal Ocean have finished second to her. The market seems to be concentrating on the two four-year-old fillies who got closer to her than Crystal Ocean, but it’s worth noting Sir Michael Stoute’s horse had to concede her 8lbs (in the September Stakes at Kempton) and was coming off a mini season break.

The trio’s official ratings reflect these form lines and suggest this could be a very close-run affair with Crystal Ocean (125) conceding 3lbs to Magical (123) and Sea Of Class (122). However it’s worth pointing out that Crystal Ocean has a box ticked that the fillies don’t: top class form at Royal Ascot on fast ground. He won the Hardwicke Stakes at this meeting last season and went on to finish a very close second to Poet’s Voice in the King George. Both of those races were over 12 furlongs and it’s conceivable that could be his best distance but has won three of his five starts over 10 furlongs, including in the Gordon Richards Stakes on his first run of this season, and his trainer has won this race three times before. You could also argue that both Magical and Sea Of Class’s form has come over further as well.

Crystal Ocean is ultra consistent, having finished outside of the top two on each of his last 10 starts and never finished out of the frame in his life. Odds of 9/2 underestimate him.

Kew Gardens

7/1 - Ascot Gold Cup (4:20 Thursday)

Four-year-olds have taken six of the last seven renewals of the Gold Cup, which is a disproportionate return considering they have only provided 35% of the total runners in that time period. Of those six winners, only Order Of St George had a higher rating than Kew Gardens has going into this year’s renewal.

Like Order Of St George, Kew Gardens has to prove himself over the Gold Cup trip, but there is no doubting his class, considering he is rated just 1lb below Stradivarius and 1lb above Melbourne Cup winner Cross Counter. There are reasons to be positive about him staying the trip, not least the decision of Aidan O’Brien and the Coolmore partners to pitch him in here, but also the manner of his St Leger win last season. At Doncaster that day, stablemate Nelson was sent on to ensure a solid pace and the end result was that it was the fastest St Leger run since 2011. Kew Gardens was at his strongest at the end of the mile-six-and-a-half-furlong trip, he and Lah Ti Dar coming clear the likes of Southern France, Dee Ex Bee and Old Persian in a vintage renewal.

Stradivarius will be tough to beat. He has the perfect racing style for ‘Cup’ races but his rating of 120 is indicative that he never really blows his rivals away. Kew Gardens has the potential to develop into the next big stayer for Ballydoyle and he can put it up to the reigning champion.