World’s highest-rated horse Baaeed lines up in Royal Ascot opener

Once again the best isn’t left until last at Royal Ascot but put straight up front to the start of the most glamorous week of the racing year.

The world’s highest-rated racehorse, Baaeed, lines up in Tuesday’s opener, the Queen Anne Stakes, which a decade ago saw a similar scenario when Frankel put up perhaps the most devastating performance of his stellar career.

That everything else proved an inevitable anticlimax prompted some debate about the merits or otherwise of loading so many good races to the top of the week’s programme.

Three centuries of tradition, however, means change rarely occurs in a hurry at British racing’s signature event so once again three of the week’s eight Group One races are crammed into the first four races on Tuesday.

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If Baaeed is widely expected to continue down the same route as Frankel, the first major sprint of the meeting is a much more competitive and international affair, with top-turf speedsters from Australia and the US, as well as Europe, taking each other on in the King’s Stand Stakes.

Rarely then has a superb 2,000 Guineas winner such as Coroebus found himself as far down the anticipatory pecking order as he does in the St James’s Palace Stakes.

Widely regarded as the best of Godolphin’s three Guineas winners this season, Coroebus’s attempt to become the 16th colt to add the James’s Palace to his Newmarket Classic win, a double completed by Poetic Flare a year ago.

Both he and Baaeed are likely to start warm odds-on favourites on a date that sees the “Full House” signs return to one of the social events of the year and a platinum jubilee occasion for the Queen into the bargain.

The sport’s most famous owner even has her own Group One ambition with King’s Lynn a realistic player in the King’s Stand.

The five-year-old is part of a European squad that might be unkindly described as “much of a muchness” in comparison to the quality brought by the two main international raiders.

Australian racing isn’t slow in acclaiming its sprint stars as the best in the world, something that might mischievously be viewed as a reaction to having its top middle-distance contests routinely picked off by horses from Europe and Japan.

Substance was added to the claim however when Aussie sprinters picked up the King’s Stand four times in seven years between 2003 and 2009.

Now one of the country’s top speedsters Nature Strip lines up with a bulging CV and an official rating significantly superior to any of the home hopes.

The only rival that comes close in official handicap terms is America’s Golden Pal in the Coolmore Stud silks.

His trainer Wesley Ward won the King’s Stand with Lady Aurelia five years ago but has hyped Golden Pal as the best he’s ever had through his hands.

The fact remains, however, he has failed to live up to that reputation in two transatlantic runs to date.

In contrast Nature Strip has been described as a “foolproof horse” by Chris Waller, the man who moulded Winx’s stunning career, although he has yet to win at Royal Ascot.

Logo Hunter and Mooneista fly the Irish flag but if there’s value to be had in the betting market a return to her Nunthorpe form by Winter Power could see her go close.

She breaks from stall one of the 18 runners which is the sort of extreme draw that could turn out to be either a major plus or minus.

The same applies to Royal Scotsman in the Coventry Stakes, which interrupts the Group One glut and contains four Irish hopes.

Aidan O’Brien has the fancied pair Blackbeard and Age Of Kings while Michael O’Callaghan runs Harry Time and the 100-1 Listowel winner Ti Sento makes a first start in the Qatar Racing silks.

Hopes are high for the Irish raiders this week as they try to improve on a record of 181 Royal Ascot winners that have been based in this country since 1946.

Ryan Moore, favourite to be top jockey for a ninth time, has opted for Blackbeard who is unbeaten in three starts.

O’Brien has won the Coventry nine times, including his first ever success at the meeting in this race all of 25 years ago.

The Richard Hannon team also have a super race record over the years and have made no secret of their regard for another unbeaten colt, Persian Force.

Royal Scotsman in contrast comes in relatively under the radar, although he impressed at Goodwood on his second start. He does have an extreme draw but could still represent a touch of betting value.

The two-and-a-half mile Ascot Stakes has been a happy hunting ground for Irish horses with nine victories since 1998. Willie Mullins has supplied four of them in the last decade and relies on Bring On The Night this time.

These kind of fast ground conditions will be new for this horse who won two of his three starts on the flat in France for Andre Fabre.

Live coverage of Royal Ascot is available on Virgin Media One each day this week. Coverage of the final race on each day’s card will be available on Virgin Media Two.

Tuesday’s home action is over the jumps at Roscommon where Sole Pretender should have little more than a lucrative school in his second start over fences.