The Royal Ascot Festival is just around the corner, and people have already begun to place their ante-post bets. If you are still struggling to decide who the winners of the big races will be, then you're in luck. We've picked apart the form cards and come up with a small selection of horses who are either almost unbeatable or who've been given longer odds than we think they deserve.
So, you'll be in good hands with these two top-class horses, whether you enjoy an each-way bet on a long-priced outsider or a safer but slightly less lucrative bet on a short-priced favourite.
King Edward VII Stakes - Auguste Rodin 12/1
The Tote Ten to Follow works in much the same way as a Fantasy Football team, with users choosing the horses they would most like to have in their fantasy stables. At the end of the racing season, the prize money gets tallied up, and whoever's fantasy stable has made the most money wins. Therefore, it's never a bad idea to check if any of the most chosen horses pop up in major races, and unsurprisingly, there are several running at Ascot.
The single most chosen horse in the Tote Ten to Follow is Auguste Rodin, with 34.8% of users choosing this colt as part of their stable. This colt ran a blinding race in the Epsom Derby and finished first by half a length ahead of King Of Steel.
The King Edward VII Stakes is run over the same distance as the Epsom Derby, and could see Auguste Rodin taking on no less than 11 horses he left in the dust at Epsom, including King of Steel, Military Order, Arrest, Sprewell, Artistic Star, Adelaide River, Dubai Mile, San Antonio, The Foxes, Waipiro and Dear My Friend.
Obviously, not all of the forty-plus entries in the Stakes will end up running, but it is interesting to see Auguste Rodin so far down in the betting, despite his triumph over a number of early entries.
Additionally, the 5/1 favourite Circle of Fire has just one win to his name and was well beaten by both Waipiro and Military Order on his last outing, suggesting he would be outperformed by Auguste Rodin too.
Queen Anne Stakes - Modern Games 7/4
The Queen Anne Stakes is open to horses aged four and over and is run over a distance of a mile. It is run on Ascot’s famous straight track, so there’s no concern for horses who prefer to run right, or left-handed. This year its winners will receive a share of £600,000 so the competition is hot. It's notorious for being a closely run race; looking at the betting odds, that would seem to be the case again this year.
The favourite for the race is Modern Games, and while it's not always as exciting to back the favourite, owing to the shorter odds, sometimes the favourite is just too difficult to oppose. This is very much the case for Modern Games.
If the short odds put you off, you don't have to rule yourself out of betting entirely. There are lots of free horse racing bets on offer around the festival, which allow you to place bets without wagering your own money.
The fiery red colt has plenty of winning form over a mile, most recently at Newbury, where he took the Al Shaqab Lockinge Stakes. This race really showed the colt's guts, as he came from behind and swerved a bite from Chindit, who eventually took second place but never stopped accelerating.
Notably, he's also won the FanDuel Breeders' Cup Mile in Keeneland, the Ricoh Woodbine Mile Stakes in Woodbine and the Poule d'Essai des Poulains in Longchamp — all Group 1 races with enormous prize money.
