Coronation Stakes Tips: Opera Singer To Hit Right Note

A vintage renewal of the Coronation Stakes awaits the legions of flat fans heading to Day 4 of Royal Ascot, with a host of regally bred fillies clashing and reputations on the line. We have the surprise English 1000 Guineas winner in the field, but she doesn't head the market. Billy Grimshaw has the preview and his idea of the winner right here...

Get your flaming pitchforks at the ready. Despite the depth of the field here in the Coronation Stakes, I am rowing in behind the master of Ballydoyle Aidan O'Brien once more and will be backing Ryan Moore's ride, the favourite OPERA SINGER.

We have seen already this season - namely but not exclusively with City Of Troy - that it pays to forgive Ballydoyle big names a floppy first run of the campaign. Aidan O'Brien has in his usual way been tough on himself and insists he sent plenty out underdone at the beginning of the season, including Opera Singer in her Irish 1000 Guineas assignment. With that in mind, a third placed finish was really no disgrace.

If, as I am, you are willing to put a line through that run then we are looking at a filly with the world at her feet judging by her juvenile form and breeding. She dazzled at two and capped it all off with a stunning five length Longchamp romp, and the manner of that win is what makes me so certain this is a filly out of the top drawer. I can't see her struggling at this course and with the best in the business on her back, I'm expected a resounding bounce back to form.

She will have to be at her best to win here as it is a very deep renewal indeed. Many will think 1000 Guineas winner Elmalka is being disrespected as the third favourite following her win in the Newmarket Classic on just her third racecourse start. There is surely more to come from Roger Varian's charge and I'd rate her as the biggest danger to Opera Singer, for all that the 1000 Guineas as a piece of form could yet work out poorly and the bunched finish does make me sceptical.

That race was at least run at a decent clip which proved her stamina, which is something that cannot be said of Ramatuelle who if we are being hyper-critical wilted a touch in the 1000 Guineas once things got tough. Perhaps that is cruel and she will enjoy a less arduous test here, which although the track is stiffer at Ascot there is less pace on and so it is more likely the race is run at a more normal tempo.

Content is no forlorn hope as the Ballydoyle second string and she looks a smidgen overpriced on the back of her splendid run in the Breeders' Cup last season. Like the favourite she needs forgiving her reappearance over in France when it was clear from the word go her mind was elsewhere and she ran with far too much freshness.