New running order Day-by-day guide

Today

Everyone, even those who never emerge from their club tent in the Royal Enclosure, knows that the best day’s racing at Royal Ascot is the first, with three Group One races. Today’s may still be one of the best, but while we have the Queen Anne and King’s Stand, the St James’s Palace has been shifted to Saturday. Instead of being the Derby and Oaks consolation races at the end of the week, because the Derby is now being run in July, the King Edward VII and Ribblesdale have been brought forward in a new role as trials for the Epsom Classics. A good idea, but it is disappointing that there are only six takers – with Mogul, ridden by Ryan Moore (pictured) the favourite – for the King Edward.

Tomorrow

The Prince of Wales’s, the mile-and-a-quarter Group One for older horses won last year by Crystal Ocean (pictured), remains the highlight of day two. Wednesday usually starts with the Queen Mary for the ultra speedy blink-and-they’regone two-year-old fillies, but that has been moved back to Saturday to give the fillies an extra five days to mature as we are effectively only in week three of the season. It means the Windsor Castle, a lesser two-yearold race pulled forward from Saturday, is the first race for juveniles this week.

Thursday

The Gold Cup – with Stradivarius (pictured) going for three in a row – and Britannia Handicap are just about all that is recognisable from a normal Royal Ascot Thursday. You may have noticed that, in normal times, there were only ever six races a day at the Royal meeting and that has been increased to seven (eight on Saturday) to give a few more horses the chance to race after the first 11 weeks of the season were missed. The new races, all worth £35,000, are handicaps, such as tomorrow’s Silver Royal Hunt Cup for horses balloted out of the real thing, or Saturday’s Silver Wokingham. Thursday’s is the Golden Gates Stakes. These extra races start the card each day.

Friday

The Commonwealth Cup, a Group One sprint for three-year-olds, was invented as a race only a few years ago, but its success was instant and it has shared top billing with the Coronation Stakes. But with the Coronation put back a day, the Commonwealth sort of comes of age as the feature race of the day without the other Group One to hold its hand. The bulk of the two-year-old races start now, with the Norfolk and Albany on the card. The Hardwicke – a Group Two which occasionally throws up the week’s best winner, which last year was Defoe (pictured) – moves from its usual Saturday slot to make way for the three-year-old milers.

Saturday

It is a curious thing in British racing that the first day of a big meeting is often designed to be the best, but this time it looks like the best has been saved for last with three Group Ones. The Diamond Jubilee – won by Charlie Appleby’s Blue Point (pictured) a year ago – holds its place, but is joined by the St James’s Palace and Coronation Stakes, the extra few days between Newmarket and now means that the races might gather up a few Guineas runners, although neither the 2,000 Guineas winner Kameko nor his Irish counterpart, Siskin will be there. Chuck in the Queen Mary and Coventry Stakes and this has the look of a wonderful days’ racing.