Royal Ascot 2025 updates: news, previews and more on day two – live

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3.05pm QUEEN’S VASE preview

The first significant three-year-old race of the season at a mile and three-quarters, and while Carmers took the Yeats Stakes at Navan in May over a furlong shorter, every other runner is stepping up at least two furlongs in trip. Many are likely to post a new career-best as a result, including Aidan O’Brien’s Shackleton, a son of Camelot who was fourth of five on his return to action over 10 furlongs at the Curragh but was stopped in his run and looked sure to improve for a step up in trip. Roger Varian’s Rahiebb comes in with a fairly similar profile to the trainer’s Eldar Eldarov, who landed this in 2022 and went on to win the St Leger, while Asmarani, a product of the late Aga Khan IV’s breeding operation whose pedigree is laden with stamina, is another very interesting contender for Francis-Henri Graffard. He was runner-up to a next-time winner in the Group Three Prix Hocquart at Longchamp in May, is second-in on Timeform ratings on that form and is almost certain to find plenty more now that he goes beyond a mile-and-a-half. Devil’s Advocate, whose dam was a winner at this trip, was fourth in the Dante at York and is another to consider along with O’Brien’s second-string Scandinavia, a maiden winner by Justify out of a Galileo mare, in what looks, on paper at least, to be a cracking renewal of this race.

SELECTION: ASMARANI

• Carmers is the most backed at Oddschecker today – 25% of total stakes

• Market Mover: Asmarani 6/1 into 7/2

The nearest she’ll get to getting wet today. Photograph: John Walton/PA

2.30pm QUEEN MARY STAKES preview

Royal Ascot provides all manner of different challenges for form students and the task here is to identify the winner in a big field of juvenile fillies that - with the exception of a couple of rank outsiders – have all had either one, two or no races at all. Judging the relative merits of lightly-raced two-year-olds is a tricky puzzle that tends to involve a lot of trial and error, but there has been little doubt that Karl Burke’s Zelaina would set off as the favourite for this race since she all the running to win a maiden at Nottingham earlier this month by nearly three lengths. She cost £650k at the breeze-ups earlier this year and was still showing signs of inexperience at Nottingham, so she can be expected to improve significantly for the run (Timeform added a capital “P” to her rating, suggesting that she is open to much more than normal improvement, and they don’t hand those out willy-nilly). Wesley Ward has sent four winners of this race over from his base in the United States, and while he is missing from the meeting this year, there is a still an American presence thanks to Patrick Biancone’s Lennilu. Biancone won consecutive Arcs in 1983 and 1984 with All Along and Sagace, but has now been training in the States for more than two decades.

Lennilu qualified to run via the Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies at Gulfstream, which you can watch – with commentary in Spanish, as it’s the only one I could find – here, and Timeform were sufficiently impressed by that run to make her their second-top runner in the race on ratings behind Aidan O’Brien’s True Love. Lennilu’s work rider and groom for the trip, incidentally, will be the trainer’s daughter, Andie, whose main job is as a reporter and analyst on the American racing channel, FanDuel TV. True Love, meanwhile, had her form behind stable-companion Gstaad at Navan in May seriously boosted on Tuesday when Gstaad ran out a comfortable winner of the Coventry Stakes. A raft of other contenders with a single run and win to their name include Spicy Marg and Staya, and while Spicy Marg took a Newmarket novice that has produced two Royal Ascot winners in the last three years, Staya also put up a taking performance in her Yarmouth maiden. She travelled well, eased through towards the lead, quickened when required and clocked a decent time for a debutant, so a price of around 16-1 is a fair each-way option in an open race.

SELECTION: STAYA

• 23% of total bets on Oddschecker this morning have been on Zelaina

• Market Mover: Cardiff By The Sea 18/1 into 9/1

Clock that accessory! Photograph: John Walton/PA

Here’s the run down of the action today and I will start posting Greg Wood’s previews to give you a chance to study the form:

2.30pm - The Queen Mary Stakes (5f)
3.05pm - The Queen’s Vase (1m 6f)
3.40pm - The Duke of Cambridge Stakes (1m)
4.20pm - The Prince of Wales’s Stakes (1m 2f)
5.00pm - The Royal Hunt Cup (Heritage Handicap) (1m)
5.35pm - The Kensington Palace Stakes (Handicap) (1m)
6.10pm - The Windsor Castle Stakes (5f)

A racegoer's dress is adjusted as they queue to enter Royal Ascot. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

4.20pm Prince Of Wales’s Stakes
2 Certain Lad (going not suitable)

5.35pm Kensington Palace Stakes
20 Queen Of Atlantis (bad scope)

6.10pm Windsor Castle Stakes
13 Kansas (not eaten up)

Two racegoers pictured arriving at Royal Ascot. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

GoingStick readings at 8.30am:
Stands’ side: 8.5
Centre: 8.6
Far side: 8.5
Round course: 7.4

A racegoer arriving early at the track on day two of Royal Ascot. Photograph: John Walton/PA

Preamble

Good morning from Ascot on day two of the 2025 Royal meeting on what promises to be another scorcher of a day, both on and off the track.

There is only one Group One event on the card – the Prince of Wales’s Stakes in the traditional primetime slot at 4.20pm (all times BST) – but it is an ultra-competitive renewal with no fewer than five of the runners priced up between 9-4 and 11-2 or shorter.

A trio of Group Twos take us up to the feature, ranging from two-year-old fillies blitzing down the straight course in the Queen Mary Stakes (2.30pm) to three-year-old stayers and St Leger candidates in the Queen’s Vase. And the late afternoon action includes the Royal Hunt Cup, one of the most competitive handicaps of the year, and the added bonus of a royal runner with a big chance as Rainbows Edge goes to post in the purple and scarlet silks for the Kensington Palace Stakes at 5.35pm.

Five millimetres of water on both the straight and round courses overnight has maintained the going as good to firm, good in places, although it is sure to be getting faster as the day unfolds.

In the jockey and trainer standings, Ryan Moore remains odds-on to be the week’s leading rider at around 4-7 but James Doyle, who rode the last two winners on the opening day, is now down to 15-8 (from an opening 5-1) with William Buick, who remains winnerless, is out to around 10-1. Fallen Angel, in the Duke Of Cambridge Stakes, and Map Of Stars, in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, are Doyle’s major hopes today, while all four of Moore’s rides on the card – True Love (2.30pm), Shackleton (3.05pm), Los Angeles (4.20pm) and The Liffey (5pm) – are currently either favourite or second-favourite for their races.

A report on yesterday’s action with a quick stroll through today’s card is here, more detailed previews of today’s seven races are on the way, and all the latest news, betting moves, results, quotes and more will be here on the live blog throughout the day.