Good Evening, Friend,

I hope you had a great weekend and enjoyed Day 1 of Royal Ascot. As I type we've just lost the first Ashes Test, urgh.

Below you can find some Royal Ascot content. 

My weekend away in Prague was going very well, until our Sunday evening Easyjet flight was cancelled earlier in the afternoon, and after much back and forth, they very 'kindly' put us on a flight back to Bristol (not Gatwick!) on Monday evening, 9.50pm. At least we had another evening in Prague and were able to sort a hotel (whether they cover that, who knows). Monday's flight was delayed an hour, we sat on the runway the other end waiting for a bus to the terminal and a large queue at passport control.

Eventually I found my way to a taxi at 1.30am to take me back to Gatwick ('kindly' paid for by Easyjet), frustratingly plenty of diversions around closed motorways and to top it all, we were pulled over by the police, as they inspected the driver/cars business insurance. It really was quite the trip!! I trundled in at 6am this morning, 12 hours after we left the hotel in Prague for the airport. But in the grand scheme of things it was only a minor inconvenience.

That's a long way of me saying that after having had some sleep this morning, I'm 1.5 days behind where I planned to be, during what can be the busiest week of the Flat season. I did manage to find an internet cafe in Prague and file my Day 1 Ascot preview which i'd promised Matt B - Calling The Wind EW 12s, who ran a cracker in 2nd for a small profit. The Trends Shortlist included the first 3, sadly no £1500 trifecta here, alas! Gavin Priestley previewed The Kings Stand and landed on the 1-2, including the 33s>14s winner, fair play!

On Day 2 I've previewed the 3.05pm...

You can read my thoughts over on Matt's blog HERE >>>

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The Royal Hunt Cup

If you haven't flicked through my Ascot Trends and Trainer pointers, you can find this report HERE >>>

The only 'trends' race tomorrow from that report is The Royal Hunt Cup at 5pm.

My trends profile of... carrying 9-5 or less, 6th or lower in weights, 0-2 runs this season, 0-3 wins in handicaps, 0-1 win at this class or higher, 1-11 places in career and 1-4 places in handicaps... that profile has found 11 of the last 15 winners, so may not do the trick this year. But if it does uphold, we're looking at a shortlist of six...

Blue For You / Sonny Liston / Chasing Aphrodite / Koy Koy / Dawn of Liberation / Light And Dark

We'll see how they get on but they could be worth a closer look, something I haven't had time to do as yet.

There's a post up on the blog for Day 2, and I'll put some content there asap, but if you want to chat in the comments or post any fancies, you can do so HERE >>>

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Enjoy the rest of your evening,

All the best,

Josh