Royal Ascot: Gold Cup Betting Preview
The brilliant Berkshire meeting of Royal Ascot certainly isn’t short of standout events, with each of the five days being lit up by at least one top-class Group 1 contest. From the sprinters to the milers, the colts to the fillies, there’s a big pot to aim at for all. However, for many racing fans, the biggest, best, and most historic contest of all comes on Thursday afternoon, as the most talented stayers in training lock horns over 2m4f in the Gold Cup.
With the runners and riders now confirmed ahead of the 2023 edition, here we take a look at the most likely contenders for glory, a selection of outsiders who may outrun their odds, and pick out our best bets for the race.
The Favourites
We currently have a two-way battle for favouritism between Roger Varian’s Eldar Eldarov and Coltrane from the yard of Andrew Balding. At 10/3 with William Hill, Eldar Eldarov just about shades it, and certainly has the class to be involved having claimed a famous success in the St. Leger at Doncaster last season. On the downside, he did disappoint in his only previous attempt at 2m+ when well beaten in the Champion Long Distance Cup at this track in October.
Coltrane (7/2 with BetUK), meanwhile, is a perfect one from one over this 2m4f, having shown real guts to land the Ascot Stakes at this meeting 12 years ago. The possible negative with this one is whether he is quite up to this class, with his only previous outing in Group 1 company resulting in a fourth-placed effort in the 2m Goodwood Cup.
At 13/2 with 10Bet, Aidan O’Brien’s filly, Emily Dickinson, is next in line. An easy winner in her only previous outing over 2m, she is 0 from 4 in Group 1 company, but each of those efforts did come over trips shorter than ideal. She’ll need to step up from her last effort when beaten at odds of just 2/5 in a Group 3, but, hailing from the most successful yard in the history of this race, is in the right hands to do so.
John Gosden is another man who knows what it takes to succeed here, having saddled Stradivarius to a brilliant hattrick of successes between 2018 and 2020. This year the Gosdens are responsible for the only unbeaten runner in the field, Courage Mon Ami (7/1 with bet365). This represents a huge step up in class for the son of Frankel, but he has done all that has been asked of him to date - winning two starts on the all-weather and handling the step up to 1m6f with aplomb last time out at Goodwood.
Lively Outsiders
Of those available at double-figure prices, the horse to immediately jump off the page is the Charlie Johnston-trained Subjectivist (10/1 with LiveScoreBet). A two-time winner at the highest level, his only previous crack at this race saw him demolish the field in the 2021 edition, with Stradivarius amongst those vanquished in behind. If in anything like the same sort of form, he should probably be favourite here. But therein lies the doubt, with the horse only recently returning from an injury-enforced absence of 618 days.
Charlie Appleby is yet to win this prize but boasts an intriguing contender this year in the shape of the globetrotting, Ybir (12/1 with Coral). A Group class winner on both sides of the Atlantic, this son of Dubawi has the class to be involved if handling this significant step up in trip.
Others to note include Echoes In Rain (14/1 with Ladbrokes), who hails from the powerful National Hunt yard of Willie Mullins, and Alan King’s Trueshan (20/1 with bet365), who is one of only three runners in the field with a previous win over this distance to their name.
Best Bets
- Best Win Bet - Coltrane @ 7/2 with BetUK
- Forecast - 1st Coltrane, 2nd Subjectivist
- Best Each Way Options - Subjectivist @ 10/1 with LiveScoreBet & Echoes In Rain @ 14/1 with Ladbrokes
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