2:22 Ascot Tips

Never So Brave goes up in distance to a mile for the first time but he has run and won over seven and a half furlongs last year at Chester and comfortably won the Buckingham Palace Stakes Handicap over 7f here last time.

Haatem is by far the most experienced runner here and looks set to go well. Stayed on to win over ten furlongs at Royal Ascot this year. Won the 7 furlongs Jersey Stakes at last year's Festival so goes well at Ascot. 1 mile suits well. Looks back to his best. Wins at Group 2, Group 3 and Listed level previously. Just failed to beat Rosalion in the Irish 2,000 Guineas last year. Strong shout.

Has Ro bounced back from a last-placed effort behind Dockland and Rosallion at Royal Ascot, where he was eased when his chance had gone? He won this race last year and can repeat that. He was highly tried after that victory, following it up with a Group 2 win before finding Group 1 company too hot to handle. He also won a listed event on his return before the aforementioned last-placed Group 1 effort here, and has won twice from 3 starts here.

Point Lynas has the potential to get a soft lead here, and back to going on which he is 8/9 a place he has to be overpriced. A slight concern is Spencer decides to do his usual and drop him in instead of adopting the usual front-running tactics that the horse enjoys, but hopefully stall 1 gives him no option. If he can sneak some lengths early, I think there’s a chance he can stay there with the right fractions on the round course where sometimes quicker ground can make it harder to make up ground late on. Any repeat of his last effort on GF ground and he’ll be bang there pitching late on even if he does need some of these to underperform.