Royal Ascot Day 4 Racing Tips – Opera Singer can win Coronation Stakes For Moore & O’Brien

Thursday was a disaster from start to finish with all three selections running considerably below par.

I couldn’t find excuses for any of them, in the end, it was just one of those days. Day four of Ascot has arrived and I’ve previewed four races below, which include my four selections for day four.

Ascot 2.30 – Albany Stakes ( Group 3 ) – Royalty Bay 16/1 EW

The Albany Stakes opens day four of Royal Ascot on Friday and it looks wide open in my opinion despite a short-priced favourite heading the market. The Albany Stakes has thrown up some lovely winners over the years, Porta Fortuna under the guidance of Donnacha O’Brien in 2020, Meditate for Aidan O’Brien in 2022, and a personal favourite of mine in Sandrine, for trainer Andrew Balding in 2021.

Before I even studied this particular race, I looked at the prices of some of the previous winners over the years. It hasn’t been a race for favourite backers, with only two favourites winning over the past ten years and neither of them significantly strong in the market with both favourites winning at odds of 4/1.

The favourites

On paper, Aiden O’Brien’s Fairy Godmother is a worthy favourite but I’m not sure she merits a price as short as 13/8. Regardless, it’s hard to not be impressed by her previous win at Naas which saw her reverse the form with Sparkling Sea who beat her on debut. She encountered traffic problems on that occasion and had to wait for racing room before making her challenge. I was impressed with her turn of foot and how she ate up ground on the leader, before eventually getting up towards the line.

Another towards the head of the market is Charlie Appleby’s Mountain Breeze. Again, another horse who has impressed me in two runs so far but the form of the yard is shocking and is enough to put me off altogether.

Royalty Bay

For the reasons mentioned above, I’ve chosen to look elsewhere. My eye was continuously drawn to Royalty Bay from the J&S Quinn yard. She was an expensive enough purchase, when selling for £125,000 at the breeze ups, but started her career off with a bang when winning on debut at Ripon by 3L. She showed slight signs of inexperience on debut but once straightened back up she stayed on strongly, showing a nice attitude and turn of foot to get the better of Charlie Johnsons Substitute in the run-in.

Substitute contests in this race also and has Oisin Murphy on board. However, she’s priced up at 66/1 and clearly isn’t fancied to reverse the form with my selection. Most firms are offering four places, so the 16/1 that’s on offer could represent some nice each-way value in this wide open contest.

Ascot 3.45 – Coronation Stakes (Group 1) – Opera Singer 6/4

The second Group 1 of Day three of Royal Ascot is the Coronation Stakes which is run over 1m around the round course, contested by 3yo Fillies only.

Emalka

At first glance, you could easily say it’s a good renewal as the 1000 Guineas winner, Emalka, turns up, but I don’t think this is a great bunch of 3yo fillies, and I do think the short-priced Aidan O’Brien horse will be tough to beat.

Emalka sprung a big surprise when winning the UK 1000 Guineas at odds of 25/1 under Sylvestre De Sousa and Roger Varian. She was third on her first run of the season when finishing behind Folgaria (in today’s race), so to see her improve to win the Guineas was a shock.

She was ahead of Porta Fortuna and Ramatuelle in the Guineas, and though they are both highly rated horses, the fact they were behind Emalka I think makes the form not particularly strong. After all, the latter was 2nd in a Group 3 before the UK Guineas and the former, though she is a Group 1 winner, has beaten horses who aren’t really top class horses. On top of that, she was 2nd at the Breeder’s Cup, which saw Context (Aidan O’Brien’s 2nd runner in this race) a close fourth with a horrible passage through and she is far from the top level, so the level of form in this race from the majority of the horses seems to be massively over-hyped.

The other French horse, Rouhiya improved to win a Group 1 last time we saw her, having previously run at an 80 rated horse level, so props to her. However, once again, the form doesn’t look strong at all.

Opera Singer

With all that has been said, it’s not a surprise that Opera Singer is my selection. She is a Group 1 winner from Longchamp. The form isn’t great from that race either, but she demolished that field by 5L, so at least she won with a serious amount of authority whereas the others in this field haven’t managed to do that.

She was expected to go close in the Irish 1000 Guineas when going off at 7/2, and she ran a credible race to finish 3rd. She looked in need of the run, and there will be question marks about whether she has trained on, but I think she will come on for the run, and if Ryan goes from the front like he did in her Group 1 win at Longchamp, she could take some pegging back.

Ascot 5.05 – Sandringham Stakes – Hard To Resist 16/1 EW

The Sandringham, as expected, is wide open and finding the winner will be a hard task. Most bookmakers are offering six places and utilising the each-way side of things is probably the way to go.

Hard to Resist

Hard To Resist has been off the track for 238 days, which is my only slight concern, but it seems likely that this race has been the aim and she has more than likely been prepared for it in the background. She looks potentially well-handicapped for her handicap debut under the guidance of trainer William Haggas and jockey Tom Marquand.

She made significant progress by securing her first victory at Newmarket after finishing sixth in her debut race. Following this, she competed in a competitive Group 3 race at Goodwood, where she finished third. The top two finishers in that race are currently rated 109 and 110, based on which Hard To Resist looks strong enough to make her a possible player in this race.

My selection hasn’t been seen since finishing fourth in the Group 3 Prix Miesque Stakes, however, it is worth noting that she was not far behind the eventual winner that day Tamfana, who went on to finish fourth in the 1000 Guineas. I think the combination of better ground and a larger field will play into her favour and there is a strong possibility of significant improvement for her.

Ascot 5.40 – King Edward VII Stakes (Group 2) – Diego Velazquez 7/2

The penultimate race of the day is a Group 2 over 1m 4f for colts and geldings aged three.

This race is probably a lot closer than many other of the Group races, and that’s mainly due to Aidan O’Brien’s three horses not being head-and-shoulders ahead on form and the horses from the other yards could easily improve and go past them, but whether that will happen or not, time will tell.

Diego Velazquez

I’ve taken the approach that the best pedigree in the lineup will win and that is Diego Velazquez. Sometimes you can try your best to go through each runner and find a way to beat the ‘most likeliest’ winner, but more often than not, it doesn’t work and going with the best horse in the race based on ratings often comes up trumps.

Diego Velazquez shares the top rating with Mondo Man, and the latter was ahead of DV when they last met, but I’ll talk about the French runner later on. Diego Velazquez is by Frankel and is out of a mare who has produced Point Lonsdale and Broome, both very good horses, especially Broome was a tremendous horse for Aidan and danced all the big dances across the globe.

Both of the horses I’ve mentioned stayed today’s trip and won over further, so I refuse to believe that the French Derby run over 1m 2f at his first attempt over a mile was an accurate representation. Being by Frankel, you’d expect him to be better over this longer trip, with Frankel being known for producing strong stayers. Ryan Moore has decided to ride DV, and I think that’s the correct decision.

Other strong candidates

I’ll mention Mondo Man who is an interesting runner over today’s trip as he is normally held up over shorter trips and the same comments can be applied to his strong finishing fifth in the French Derby. He could easily win this race, but I would be mightily disappointed if this horse with a much worse pedigree was supremely better than Diego Velazquez.

Space Legend will be strongly fancied to run well for James Doyle and the William Haggas yard, with Wathnan racing having a decent week at this meeting. He is a very lightly-raced horse with just three runs under his belt. He could easily improve again from his runner-up finish last time out and he’ll have to if he wants to win as the form isn’t out of this world.

I could easily see Theory Of Tides being well-supported for this race as he is 2/2 and made a nice impression at York last time out in a novice event, but to the eye, he looked like a nice horse to follow. If the money arrives, it could be very interesting.

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