The eyes of the horse racing world will be on the United Kingdom in June as the prestigious Royal Ascot meeting takes place.
The five-day event kicks-off on Tuesday, May 16, with the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes and will feature a further 35 races during the rest of the week.
Top Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien will be taking his usual strong team to the Berkshire course and there will be plenty of punters using William Hill Royal Ascot offers to back his most fancied runners.
Read on as we take a closer look at three of O’Brien’s strongest contenders for glory at the Royal Ascot 2020 meeting.
Japan
Japan improved tremendously last year, ending the campaign with a fine fourth behind Waldgeist in the Prix De L’Arc De Triomphe.
The Galileo colt had won the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot earlier in the season and followed up with victories at Longchamp and York before his run in the Arc.
The four-year-old is expected to improve further this year and looks a good bet to kick-off the season by winning the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.
A return trip to France is on the cards later in the season and Japan looks a horse to follow throughout 2020.
Circus Maximus
Circus Maximus was initially seen as a middle-distance horse last term having impressively landed the Dee Stakes at Chester on his seasonal reappearance.
However, his subsequent failure to stay in the Epsom Derby resulted in O’Brien switching the horse back to a mile at Royal Ascot.
He defied odds of 10/1 to win the St James’s Palace at Royal Ascot, before coming up just short against Too Darn Hot in the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood.
Circus Maximus continued to perform with credit during the rest of the season and could be tough to beat in the Queen Anne Stakes.
Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens ended last season by narrowly beating Stradivarius in the British Champions Long Distance Cup at Ascot and will be out to repeat the trick in this year’s Gold Cup.
The horse had looked a difficult ride earlier in the campaign, but knuckled down over the two-mile trip to defeat John Gosden’s star stayer.
He has another four furlongs to travel at Royal Ascot and may not be quite as effective on conditions that are likely to be on the fast side of good.
Despite this, Kew Gardens appeals as a solid bet to at least run into a place and is undoubtedly the biggest threat to Stradivarius’ hopes of winning the race for a third successive year.
Suzanne Ashton, Founder of Everything Horse (Est, 2012), has a BA Hons in Marketing Management and a Diploma in Equine Science. Suzanne has ridden and owned horses all her life and has twelve years of experience in marketing, writing, design, SEO, and website creation.