Buckingham Palace Stakes tips: Trends put Percy’s Lad in Royal Ascot frame at huge odds
Bradsell and Hollie Doyle win the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot
Our trends analyst Andrew of Fiosrach has cast his eye over the very last race on Thursday’s Royal Ascot card to narrow down the massive 29-runner field to just a handful of likely contenders.
18:10 Buckingham Palace Stakes (Handicap) (7 furlongs)
Another of the festival's famous cavalry charges, the Buckingham Palace Stakes attracts a large field that has been another favourites' graveyard with all of the last 10 winners priced between 12/1 and 33/1.
Last year's renewal saw 29 starters line up, with Ben Curtis steering 12/1 Inver Park home by a length, with the 5/2 favourite Montassib back in fifth place.
This year's edition has also attracted 29 runners, and the trends below are used to narrow the field down somewhat prior to a deeper analysis:
Planet Sport Bet:
Money Back if 2nd to SP Favourite in all Royal Ascot Races
The trends for this race are limited due to having only eight previous runnings, but the trends are still useful to bring down the massive number of runners from 29 to just three:
Percy's Lad,
Northern Express and
Spanish Star.
Suggested bet:
Percy's Lad each-way in the 18:10 at Royal Ascot
Percy's Lad has a good winning strike rate with 5/18 wins and has also placed three times.
He stays a bit further than 7 furlongs, which is a plus at Ascot with the uphill finish taxing stamina levels. His only negative is he is bred in Britain rather than in Ireland.
Northern Express has also had five wins, albeit from 23 races, although he has added eight places to that tally.
He has run well at Ascot over course and distance but would need a career best to win this.
Spanish Star delivered a career best performance when winning at Epsom last time out and a repeat of that here should see him somewhere in the places at least.
He is more exposed than most and has eight wins to his name and an impressive 28 places from his 64 career runs. Spanish Star has also run well at Ascot which is another plus.
There are several lesser exposed horses running here, and it would be no surprise to see any of Croupier, Biggles, Unforgotten or Lir Speciale feature prominently.
However, based on the trends alone and only putting up one selection (I would normally back two selections in these big field handicaps) I would suggest an each way bet on
Percy's Lad and look around for extra places.
