Racing and Sports Adam Blencowe previews the second day at Royal Ascot 2023.
"In order to succeed, you must first survive."
- Warren Buffet*
After the jolt of Royal Ascot's opening day, we now get the chance to settle down and settle in.
The opening day of the Royal Meeting is grand, but brazen. It is like starting travels around Italy in St Mark's Square. A wonder worth seeing, and rooted in history, but loaded with other tourists making it both expensive and cheap at the same time.
See it, enjoy it, and get the hell out. On to the subtle substance of the smaller towns.
Day Two isn't as touristy as Day One but it still has its Basilica, the Prince Of Wales's Stakes, and within it lies not the body of Alexander The Great but the top-rated runner on the card.
The format for this running blog was set out in the preview for Day One which you can read here.
Top Rated – Luxembourg 128
In the last 20 years, Aidan O'Brien (as of Tuesday the most successful trainer in the history of Royal Ascot) averages a tick over a runner per year in the Prince Of Wales's Stakes and a winner in every five.
Love and Highland Reel are the most recent of four AOB-trained winners. The two prior came off winning the Tattersall's Gold Cup, the path Luxembourg takes into Wednesday's showpiece.
So You Think (forelock returned and flowing) signed off on an outstanding career by doing the double in 2012, posting an RSR of 130 in both, but it is the first of the quartet that best resembles Luxembourg.
Duke Of Marmalade was a terrific three-year-old, but injury early in his career meant that he was learning on the job, and it was at four that he really thrived; the Tattersall's Gold Cup and the Prince Of Wales's part of a Group One five-timer.
Royal Ascot was the party piece among the five wins. At Ascot The Duke was imposing, willing and then able to post a rating of 132 – the best of his career and only bettered (and then only by the narrowest of margins) by Rewilding and the comparable Manduro in the past two decades.
This is the stage that Luxembourg enters on Wednesday.
But he does not go it alone. The first three from the Champion Stakes challenge, headed by the winner Bay Bridge who gave Luxembourg the run of things last time and was good enough to make him stretch his neck.
Derby winner Adayar and an improving My Prospero chased Bay Bridge in the Champion and impressed in their tune-ups for this.
Dubai Honour, now familiar to Australian race fans (of which you, dear reader, are statistically likely to be), was sixth in that Champion at odds of 33/1. After conquering Anamoe in Sydney William Haggas (cheekily) suggested that Dubai Honour would again be 33/1 if he turned up at Royal Ascot. I (arrogantly) suggested that as an oddsmaker William made a good horse trainer. William may have been about right…
For interest, pricing models (the sophisticated kind developed by a handsome, young(ish) punter from Racing and Sports) make Anamoe roughly 25/1 when plugged into tonight's race.
Dunno – Prosperous Voyage
The same pricing model, and the same handsome handicapper, are perplexed by the race prior to the Prince Of Wales's and it is Prosperous Voyage who is doing the perplexing.
At the same point of her 2022 campaign, Prosperous Voyage fronted up at Newmarket, and raced up the July Course in front of Inspiral – narrowly beaten in yesterday's Queen Anne.
John Gosden, a master of well-sounding reasons, may have had plenty, but that Inspiral would win Group Ones in top fashion either side of this defeat says that she was in some order.
Any way you slice and dice it, the performance stands out, and modelled around it Prosperous Voyage looks better than a 2/1 chance in race three and great betting at the 3/1 on offer.
But Prosperous Voyage has been well shy of that in a dozen other runs, including when scrapping out a win at Epsom last time, and modelled more conservatively around the more recent piece of form 3/1 looks to offer poor value for money.
What to do? Dunno…
Bizzaro – Johannes Brahms
I wrote this before convincing myself to go and start getting some chips in behind Barnwell Boy. At this point I realised that Johannes Brahms was priced up outside BB and not as well found as I had imagined. But I'm short of time**
Johannes Brahms did do well beating Tourist who then made a good go of it against the Coventry winner River Tiber.
River Tiber then added another Coventry to Aidan O'Brien's record and of course he has won the Windsor Castle a few times as well – including last year with the favourite and now established star Little Big Bear.
So what is to oppose?
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." - Churchill
I don't think Churchill was talking about blind betting O'Brien two-year-olds at Ascot when he said this but it is sage advice.
Brilliant as he is, the market sees Aidan coming. In the past five years his Ascot favourites have won at around 0.8 per every one expected by the market and his two-year-olds 0.9.
So it isn't as simple as pin the tail on the Ballydoyle Beast.
In tonight's closer he runs into a field of improvers and, hopefully more importantly, one that needs little improving in Barnwell Boy.
Barnwell Boy was flat out fast at Goodwood and on that time alone should be favourite to beat the AOB colt at Ascot (a dangerous sentence these days if ever there was one…)
* Explaining that to back the winner of the Wokingham you mustn't go bust in the Queen Anne.
**Not too short of time for this unnecessary explanation, mind***
*** Or this unnecessary follow up…
