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- Royal Ascot 2025: Key Trainers to follow
Royal Ascot 2025: Key Trainers to follow
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© Healy Racing Photos
Royal Ascot is just around the corner with five days of elite racing action to look forward to and a grand total of 35 races, including eight Group 1s, eight Group 2s and 12 fiercely competitive handicaps.
Every trainer wants to be the meeting’s leading performer and there are any number of big names to keep an eye on next week.
We’ve picked out five of the most significant names that are well set to have an excellent time at the Royal meeting.
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Aidan O’Brien
You simply cannot escape the master of Ballydoyle and although he drew a blank in the British 1000 and 2000 Guineas, Aidan O’Brien hit back with victory in both the Derby and the Oaks last weekend.
O’Brien has trained 91 Royal Ascot winners and will surely be on an insurmountable total by the time he retires.
While his Ascot team has received a couple of recent knocks, with exciting juvenile Albert Einstein and Irish 1000 Guineas winner Lake Victoria both suffering setbacks, he still has a rock-solid squad to go to war with.
Los Angeles, Henri Matisse and Illinois are among his big chances and his juveniles will be in the mix too.
He also has the help of Ryan Moore, which makes him extremely dangerous, and the Irishman won’t be far away from 100 Royal Ascot winners by the end of the week.
John & Thady Gosden
Probably the finest training duo in Britain, it’s rare that the Gosden team fail to have a winner or two at Royal Ascot. They recently decided to take a new approach and go for the best jockey available on a race-by-race basis and that could prove to be a very good strategy here.
Dominant Irish 2000 Guineas winner Field Of Gold is their most obvious big chance, but 2024 Gold Cup runner-up Trawlerman will have every chance too.
Andrew Balding
© Healy Racing Photos
Hampshire-based trainer Andrew Balding has the support of some major owners and tends to do well at this meeting, in both Group races and handicaps. Oisin Murphy tends to ride most of his horses and there aren’t many better jockeys out there currently.
He could run Greenham winner and Poule d'Essai des Poulains runner-up Jonquil in the St James’s Palace Stakes and he could be a little overpriced at around 25/1. It seems likely that he will have some live contenders in some of the handicaps too.
William Haggas
Newmarket trainer William Haggas has had a bit of a blow this week, with stable star Economics being confirmed to miss a potential engagement in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes. That being said, a trainer of his calibre will have plenty of strong ammunition to take aim with.
His partnership with Tom Marquand is well established and successful, so winners in Group races and handicaps can’t be ruled out.
Charlie Appleby
Godolphin’s premier trainer, Charlie Appleby, made the perfect start to the season, winning both the 1000 and 2000 Guineas at Newmarket. Ruling Court won the latter and having missed the Derby due to ground concerns, he’s now set to run a big race in the St James’s Palace Stakes over a mile instead.
The Appleby and Buick combination is always worth looking out for and they have a particularly strong squad of two-year-olds to keep an eye on across the five days.
