Ruby Walsh: Royal Ascot finale looks tailor-made for Sadlier

An aerial view of the course at Royal Ascot. Picture: John Walton/PA Wire.

I would love to be fishing my top hat and tails out of my wardrobe on Monday afternoon before decamping to Windsor for a few nights in the shadows of the Castle, with my days spent overdressed in the baking sunshine at nearby Ascot. It is one of the rare race meetings I attend purely as a spectator, but it is one I look forward to from the minute I leave after racing on Thursday.

That’s probably a lie, but by Saturday, after dealing with the alcohol-inflicted guilt I will have felt all day Friday after two late nights and three long days, the lure to return, socialise, and watch some of the best racing on offer comes straight back to me. Champagne in the car parks before racing, Pimms for hydration in the afternoon as you watch sprinters, milers, stayers, two-years-olds, and handicappers do their thing before dinner in one of Windsor’s many fine Italian restaurants is my idea of fun.

I suppose it has been my pilgrimage for many years like Cheltenham or Aintree is to so many people. Myself, Gillian and the same bunch of friends catching the earliest flight on Monday that work or babysitters allow, just in case we might be late for the first at 2.30pm on Tuesday, promising not to be too late Monday night so we will be fresh for the Queen Anne but never heeding our own advice and dragging ourselves up Ascot’s high street the next day, wondering why everyone else is so chirpy but knowing why they are because like Cheltenham, Ascot starts with a bang.

The Queen Anne, which Palace Pier will win by the way, is followed by the Coventry Stakes, one of the few two-year-old races Wesley Ward has yet to win. He runs Kaufymaker, and Johnny Velazquez is coming to ride her. She won a four and a half furlong dirt maiden at Keeneland on her only start in a time of 52.69, yet how that translates into making her the 7-2 favourite, I don’t know, but Donnacha O’Brien’s Masseto was unlucky not to push Castle Star closer in the Marble Hill Stakes, and he will do me at 6-1.

The third is the second Group 1 of the day and the turn of the speedsters in the King’s Stand Stakes. Battaash is the sprint king, but he just doesn’t float my boat and can be a wayward character. An attendance of 12,000 is not anything like 60,000, but it is 12,000 more than were in Ascot last year when he won, and they will be making themselves heard, so I think he is opposable. With what, I am not sure, but if I were there, this is one I would be watching as a pure spectacle before the St James’s Palace at 4.20pm.

Poetic Flare ran in all the Guineas last month, three Group 1s in three weeks to go with a prep run in April. He won’t lack fitness but he could feel the effects of his exertions, and I like Chindit. He was drawn on the stands side at Newmarket but can home well and at nearly double-digit odds, represents value in an open contest.

I love the Ascot Stakes, Clondaw Warrior being my favourite memory (I missed dinner in Windsor that year too), but it is a race that the jump trainers farm. Willie will have two runners in Rayapour and M C Muldoon, and I slightly favour the latter with my snobby form hat on because he won a Fairyhouse maiden hurdle. The other got beaten at Kilbeggan, but Cape Gentleman has the best jump form of them all, and Emmet Mullins could be a thorn in his uncle’s side here.

Still, all might not be lost for Willie because the day one finale at 6.10pm, the Copper Horse Stakes, looks tailor-made for Sadlier. He bolted up last week at Listowel and heads to Berkshire in a great frame of mind.

There is a race between the two staying handicap; the Wolverton, I think it used to be a handicap at some stage, but it’s an almost 10f listed race now and the one where I would probably look for lunch if I were there. I know it’s at 5.35pm, but the others can’t be missed, neither could the pre-racing drinks in the car park, the sight of Palace Pier in the flesh or the jaunt to the pre-parade ring to see if Wesley Ward’s two-year-old filly really looks like a three-year-old colt.

One would also have to see if Battaash was getting his knickers in a knot before the King’s Stand and how tired Poetic Flare looked as he was saddled.

Willie would probably require help to saddle one of his two in the Ascot Stakes, and you get the gist of why lunch can be missed at lunchtime.

Ascot is hectic, but I will miss it. Still, whatever we do here Tuesday afternoon, the only consolation is we will undoubtedly feel more alive Wednesday morning in Kildare than we would listening to the changing of the guard in Windsor. Small mercies.