Royal Ascot 2026: Tips for Wednesday, June 17

By Kevin Blake

Day two of Royal Ascot offers another feast of world-class action. Hopefully day one treated you well, but even if it didn’t, today is a new day and it is a long week.

The second day will be kicked off in rapid style with the Queen Mary Stakes (14:30) showcasing the best of fast two-year-old fillies in Europe. The one I like is the Aidan O’Brien-trained VICTORIOUS and I’m surprised she isn’t a shorter price than she is.

Unlike her main market rivals, she has the benefit of two runs having made a winning debut at Naas prior to returning to that track to win a Group 3 last time. She showed signs of inexperience on both occasions, but will have learned on the job. The drop in trip isn’t particularly concerning as she has shown the ability to maintain a high stride frequency throughout her two races to date. True Love made a similar drop from six furlongs to win this race last year and Victorious looks to be an excellent candidate to do the same.

It is always hard to know what way the draw is going to play on the straight track at Ascot, so I tend to focus on where the quality and pace is. In this case, four of the top five in the market at the time of writing are drawn in between stalls five and 10, so that makes me comfortable with Victorious being drawn in stall five. To be honest, after she was declared with Ryan Moore in the saddle, I was expecting her to shorten into clear favouritism, but that hasn’t happened yet. I suspect it will in the fullness of time, so take the available odds while they are still there.

The Royal Hunt Cup (17:00) is always one of the most difficult and competitive handicaps of the entire year. Finding the winner of it is right up in the same air as finding the winner of the Grand National in terms of merit, so don’t expect it to be easy!

The one I like in the race is the Hamad Al Jehani-trained ARCHIVIST. The four-year-old was formerly trained by William Haggas who made no secret of the regard he held him in. He finished his campaign for him by just getting run out of it in the closing stages of the John Smith’s Cup at York, suggesting that a slightly shorter trip might well suit him best.

He subsequently changed hands and joined Hamad Al Jehani’s team and was gelded. He made run-to-run improvement in valuable handicaps at Meydan, relishing the drop to a mile when winning on his most recent start in March. He has most likely been trained for this race since and this stiff mile is sure to play to his strengths. He looks set to run a very big race at a big price.

The Kensington Palace Stakes (17:35) is another fiercely-competitive handicap, this one being confined to fillies and mares that are four-year-olds or older. Runners that are lightly raced appeal as having the edge and the one that jumps off the page is the William Haggas-trained ALOBAYYAH.

The four-year-old looked a stakes filly in the making when impressing on her debut at Yarmouth in October 2024, but she has clearly had an issue or two since then as she was confined to just two slightly disappointing runs last year.

However, she very much got back on track on her seasonal return in a valuable fillies’ handicap over this course and distance last month. Dropped in last in what was a steadily-run race, she made very eye-catching headway to finish a never-nearer third. It really was the perfect run with a view to this race and with her trainer being one of the very best placers of his horses in the game, I’d bet pounds-to-pennies this race has been her target for quite some time.

While the market very much saw the promise of her comeback run, there is a chance that she is very well-in here and her price might be made to look big after we see it play out on the track.

Queen Mary Stakes
Victorious

Royal Hunt Cup
Archivist

Kensington Palace Stakes
Alobayyah