Royal Ascot 2025: updates, previews and more on Gold Cup day
Update:
Date: 2025-06-19T10:00:18.000Z
Title: Preamble
Content: Welcome to Ascot on what the track itself likes to call the third day of the Royal meeting, and everyone else knows and loves as Ladies' Day, with the Gold Cup as the centrepiece of the action at 4.20pm (all times BST).
I must confess that I'd been racing at the Royal meeting for nigh on 40 years without realising that while courses the length and breadth of Britain have jumped on the bandwagon and branded one day each summer as their 'Ladies' Day', Ascot has never had an official one and probably never will.
'We don't have a Ladies' Day, believe it or not, and we never have,' Nick Smith, the track's director of racing and public affairs, told me last week. 'It's not in any marketing, it's not promoted as Ladies' Day, it's the public that have called it Ladies' Day.
'There's never been a 'best-dressed' competition, it's more of an organic fashion show because that's what the best milliners and couture houses in the world want it to be. We have a 'Look Book', but that's very much to showcase modern styles which are within the dress code.'
From my perspective at least, the Look Book would have been more use than the form book in terms of finding winners over the first two days of the meeting, but I remain unbowed with more than half of the Royal meeting still in front of us and I'm very keen on the chance of up-and-coming French stayer Candelari in the Gold Cup itself. Illinois, another four-year-old, is likely to set off as favourite, while the veteran Trawlerman is also prominent in the betting.
Elsewhere on the card, one of the big Aidan O'Brien bankers of the week, Charles Darwin, is currently a shade of odds-on for the opening Norfolk Stakes at 2.30pm, Catalina Delcarpio and Serenity Prayer are vying for favouritism in the Ribblesdale Stakes at 3.40pm and a daunting field of 29 runners will thunder down the straight course in the Britannia Handicap at 5pm.
The tail end of the card has the King Edward VII Stakes – aka the 'Ascot Derby' for three-year-olds over 12 furlongs – and a frankly impossible five-furlong sprint handicap – the Palace of Holyroodhouse Stakes – to round things off. I spent a long time looking at this race after the decs earlier in the week and the only worthwhile conclusion to emerge was that it was a crying shame Kevin Ryan had not booked Thore Hammer-Hansen to ride Hammer The Hammer.
The official going at Ascot remains as it was yesterday evening, ie good-to-firm on the straight course and good-to-firm, good in places on the round and the live blog, as ever, will be your guide through all the action from first to last.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
40 minutes ago
- The Independent
Jon Jones officially retires as Tom Aspinall is crowned UFC heavyweight champion
Jon Jones has officially retired from mixed martial arts, with UFC president Dana White declaring Tom Aspinall the promotion's new heavyweight champion. Jones, a former two-time light-heavyweight champion, won the vacant heavyweight belt in March 2023, before Aspinall claimed the interim belt that November, when Jones suffered a torn pectoral muscle. Jones's injury delayed his planned title defence against Stipe Miocic until November 2024, when 'Bones' ultimately returned to the cage and retained his belt with a third-round stoppage. In the meantime, Aspinall made the rare move of defending the interim title, doing so successfully last July. That set Britain's Aspinall, 32, and American Jones, 37, on a collision course. Or so it seemed. A frustrating saga saw Jones refuse to fight the interim champion yet also refuse to retire, with many fans accusing Jones of wasting Aspinall's time and a segment of the Briton's prime. On Saturday, however, Jones officially announced his retirement from MMA, leading White to declare Aspinall the regular heavyweight champion. 'Today, I'm officially announcing my retirement from the UFC,' Jones wrote on X (formerly Twitter). 'This decision comes after a lot of reflection, and I want to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude for the journey I've experienced over the years. 'From the first time I stepped into the Octagon, my goal was to push the boundaries of what was possible in this sport. Becoming the youngest UFC champion in history, defending my title against some of the best fighters in the world, and sharing unforgettable moments with fans across the globe—these are memories I'll cherish forever. 'I've faced incredible highs and some tough lows, but every challenge has taught me something valuable and made me stronger, both as a fighter and as a person [...] To my fellow fighters, thank you for bringing out the best in me and for the respect we've shared inside and outside the cage. 'As I close this chapter of my life, I look forward to new opportunities and challenges ahead. MMA will always be a part of who I am, and I'm excited to see how I can continue to contribute to the sport and inspire others in new ways. Thank you all for being part of this incredible journey with me. The best is yet to come.' Jones is seen by many fans and pundits as the greatest fighter in MMA history, although his career was marred by numerous failed drug tests and run-ins with the law. He was twice stripped of the UFC light-heavyweight title and once stripped of the interim 205lb belt. He has tested positive for both performance-enhancing and recreational substances. Yet many fans cling to Jones's record, with the American having never lost outside of a sole disqualification for using illegal elbows. For years, White attempted to have that result overturned. Jones vacated the light-heavyweight title in 2020 as he eyed a long-awaited move to heavyweight, and after three years out of the cage, he returned to submit Ciryl Gane in round one. With that result, he claimed the vacant heavyweight belt. His delayed defence against Miocic pitted the greatest-ever 205lb fighter against the consensus greatest UFC heavyweight ever. However, Miocic was 42 at the time of their fight, and his previous outing was a devastating knockout loss almost four years prior. Aspinall, meanwhile, has been one of the most electrifying fighters in the UFC since his 2020 debut. The Wigan heavyweight is 8-1 in the UFC with eight stoppage wins, all of them in the first two rounds, while his sole defeat was caused by an injury. Aspinall, who holds the record for the shortest average fight time of a UFC combatant with five or more bouts, won the interim title by knocking out Sergei Pavlovich, before retaining it with a knockout of Curtis Blaydes. His victory over Blaydes saw Aspinall avenge his injury-induced loss from 2022.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Keith Andrews hopes to be the one who wears the trousers at Brentford
At one point it looked like the rag trade would be the beneficiary of Keith Andrews' considerable talents as he modelled his own clothing creations, showing off the more svelte figure he developed later in his career once he had left some bad habits behind him. Some clobbered Andrews for wearing the clobber, but the Dubliner has a thick neck when it comes to absorbing criticism. He will need it again if he is to at least emulate the achievements of Thomas Frank at Brentford, should he be confirmed as their new head coach. Frank was a big enough loss. The new Tottenham manager taking some key members of the backroom staff, including assistant coaches Justin Cochrane and Chris Haslam and analyst Joe Newton, with him arguably hurt more, but at least it has thinned out the field when it comes to finding a ability to pull together and work with a new coaching team will be one of the factors owner Matthew Benham will be weighing up having spoken to him about the job and signalled that he is Frank's probable replacement. That Andrews hasn't joined the Tottenham exodus is significant in itself; not only does it put him in pole position, but it shows how close he is to Benham who appointed him in the first place only last summer as set-piece coach. Andrews has maintained Brentford's impressive numbers when it comes to set pieces and even improved them in some areas, though the normally sunny Frank had a slight dig at him when Brentford conceded two goals from set pieces against Newcastle in the Carabao Cup back in December. There have also been plenty of pats on the back for Andrews' dedication and overall coaching ability, but while Brentford have a culture of appointing from within, it would still be a big leap should they go for Andrews given the level of his coaching experience so far. Frank was more experienced and had worked for nearly two years as an assistant before he was offered the job. Andrews joined Brentford only back in July and his CV up to that point barely gave an inkling that he was ready to become a Premier League manager. Spells as an assistant coach at MK Dons and on the backroom staff at Sheffield United during Chris Wilder's second spell in management coincided with relegation for those two clubs, while a period as Stephen Kenny's number two with Ireland sandwiched in between wasn't deemed a success either. Andrews' first spell at MK Dons, where he was captain in his late twenties, was telling in other ways. When I interviewed Andrews there in 2008, he told of how he had warned the then club chairman Pete Winkelman away from certain managerial candidates and encouraged him to appoint Paul Ince, vouching for Ince's credentials when they had played together at Wolves. Even back then, Andrews was clearly a mover and shaker. After a successful spell at MK Dons, Ince was then appointed manager of Premier League side Blackburn Rovers and brought Andrews with him. There Andrews continued to reinvent himself, becoming an Ireland international and reuniting with Robbie Keane. Keane and Andrews joined Wolves together at the same time as young teenagers in 1996, along with three other players from Dublin, who fell by the footballing wayside over the years. While Andrews was briefly made Wolves captain at the age of 20 — one of the youngest ever at the club — he lost his way at Molineux after that because of a costly suspension, injuries and getting caught up for a while in the 'drinking culture' which he described at the time in the club. Andrews said his friends and family helped him through a 'bad patch', but it is his own drive, determination and self-belief which have been his main assets. Seeing how the old pros struggled to cope with their life once out of the game sharpened his mind further and he set about getting his coaching badges when he was at MK Dons and also started expanding his portfolio, into TV punditry and helping to start a clothing line. In the summer of 2010, when Ireland played Italy in a friendly in Belgium, he eyed the sharp-suited opponents before the game, took a look at his team-mates in their Umbro tracksuits and vowed that Ireland wouldn't be upstaged in the sartorial stakes again. Hence, how his company fitted out the Ireland team for the 2012 European Championships, where Andrews was Ireland's player of the tournament for what was otherwise a disaster for Giovanni Trapattoni's team. When his playing career was petering out, his Sky Sports punditry meant he retained a toe-hold and a presence in the game, while he also got a coaching break as Kenny brought him in to assist with the Ireland under-21s. Presumably, Brentford haven't sought an Andrews reference from Martin O'Neill or Roy Keane. During his punditry spell in 2017, Andrews did an interview in which he implied O'Neill was so lucky that if he fell in a dog's mess 'he'd still smell of Old Spice'. The words would quickly be thrown back in his face when Andrews was back in the game coaching a struggling Ireland team: 'Such pontification in the studio hasn't so far achieved the desired effect on the playing field,' claimed O'Neill, while Roy Keane, O'Neill's Ireland assistant, remarked: 'I've heard a lot of bullshitters over the last ten years and Keith Andrews is up there with the best of them.' Andrews' response to Keane? 'It didn't affect me. When you go into a new job players pretty quickly suss you out, if you are not up to the level.' Now looks like the acid test for that assertion. As well as the departure of Frank, the highly influential winger and goalscorer Bryan Mbeumo wants away and while Brentford have been market leaders in recruitment both of coaching and playing staff, other Premier League clubs with much bigger budgets are catching up when it comes to making the smart plays. 'We're just a bus stop in Hounslow,' Brentford fans now chant by way of reminding everybody how the club which trains close to Heathrow airport are constantly over-achieving. Next stop will be to see if Keith Andrews is cleared for take-off.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Forged by GAA, polished by Pep — Brian Barry-Murphy ready for Cardiff job
Jimmy Barry-Murphy was a special one, but what about his son Brian? At 46, Brian reckons he has still to realise his full potential, having moved from his father's shadow into a place of relative obscurity, changing codes, countries and constantly challenging himself in order to realise his own sporting dreams. After a perfectly respectable if unspectacular playing career, Barry-Murphy is now getting more notice as a coach. Having been appointed head coach of Cardiff City — the biggest club in Wales who were in the Premier League six years ago — Barry-Murphy is as close as he has ever been to finding out whether he is also a special one, and he is not afraid to admit it. Cardiff, Barry-Murphy believes, is 'similar to my own situation, where there is the potential to achieve something that could be really special. That is the thing which has probably excited me the most.' Of course what has attracted Cardiff to Barry-Murphy is not the father — the GAA legend who is famous only in Ireland — but the connection with Pep Guardiola and some of the bright young players who have come through the Manchester City ranks. Barry-Murphy is not a name dropper, but nor is he going to hide his light under a bushel and clearly Cardiff's controversial Malaysian owner Vincent Tan is hoping some of the Pep magic has rubbed off on Barry-Murphy. The Corkman had a highly successful two-year stint as lead coach of Manchester City's elite development squad, where he helped bring through the likes of Cole Palmer and Oscar Bobb. 'My association with players who have gone on to do what they have done probably didn't harm my cause,' Barry-Murphy admits with a slight laugh, but he knows that while it helped get him in the door at Cardiff, it could also hasten his departure should the owner feel let down. Seven of the past nine managers at Cardiff — including Mick McCarthy — haven't lasted more than a season as Tan has thrashed around looking for the right man. Instead, the owner has created a climate of chaos, with Cardiff finding themselves back in League One for the first time in 22 years after finishing bottom of the Championship. Shamrock Rovers duo Stephen Bradley and Stephen McPhail — a former Cardiff player — were linked with the job, but now was not the right time and Nathan Jones was identified as their top target, but would not leave Charlton. Barry-Murphy is prepared to take the plunge, referencing his friend and former team-mate Joe Thompson, who died in April of cancer at the age of 36. 'We spoke about this before he died, actually, and one of the things he said was, 'We don't have time to hang around or look back.' He was talking about this idea of things going wrong or what's going to happen if things don't go right. Really, it's just a waste of our time. 'We spend all of our lives proving people wrong. We have the opportunity to do something different and probably a large part of the reason I am here is a vow I made to him to do extraordinary things and fulfil what he would have wanted.' Back in Cork, Barry-Murphy consulted his father about the move to the Welsh capital: 'He said don't think twice about it. He was speaking about the stature of this club and where it is and what an opportunity it is to put the supporters and the club on a path to something completely different.' Brian played Gaelic games, but eventually found his niche in association football, playing for Cork City and Ireland Under-21, though he never won a senior cap at international level as the competition at the time was too fierce. Like Alan Sheehan, the Athlone man now managing at Swansea City who Brian knows well, he has had to bide his time, but the lessons learnt around the Barry-Murphy dinner table haven't been forgotten. 'A lot of how I work and how I try to bring people on this journey is down to what I witnessed from him growing up,' Barry-Murphy says of his father. 'I thought we could get away without mentioning him, but now that we have there was always an expectation in our household based on our father's exploits that we had to win and had to be winning trophies. That kind of stuff you become aware of from a very young age so I have lived with that my whole life.' That's why, for Barry-Murphy, the Cardiff hot seat is more than bearable to sit on. In Welsh football, Cardiff are now lagging behind both Swansea and Wrexham, who have replaced them in the Championship and become the best known club in Wales internationally because of their Hollywood owners. Cardiff's huge band of supporters are feeling hurt, betrayed and left behind, and Barry-Murphy clearly feels the need to reach out to them. Barry-Murphy does not play down the expectation of an immediate return to the Championship and is expected to work largely with what he has got in terms of the club's talented group of young players, most notably the midfielder Rubin Colwill, who played for Wales against England in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar but has since underperformed under a succession of managers. 'Everybody will be clear that we expect to be at the top of the table and looking to win the league, but the danger of that is that you don't have a clear idea of how to do it,' Barry-Murphy says. 'I have a very clear idea in my mind of how I want to do it and it involves a very clear way of playing and for the players to be super clear of what that looks like.' There is an obvious split about the appointment, which I put to Barry-Murphy when we spoke in Cardiff on Wednesday. One media outlet called it 'obscure' while another said he was 'well-qualified'. Barry-Murphy's only other experience at the sharp end of league management was at Rochdale, when the club was very much a League One underdog trying to compete with a much smaller budget, a job he held before going to Manchester City's academy. 'We were trying to defy the odds and compete with the bigger teams and we thought the best way to do that as a club was to do something different and dominate the ball completely, but there were times when we weren't as progressive or effective as we should have been. It's like life. I wish I knew back then what I know now,' Barry-Murphy says. 'When you go somewhere like Man City you see how to turn that possession-based football into effective football where you have to serve the ball to a certain calibre of footballer who want it quicker. I always knew what I wanted to do, I didn't always know how to do it. 'That is what I got from Guardiola in terms of that training programme where you keep that ball for long periods, but for what reason? The longer you keep that ball the less effective you are at arriving at the last line of the opponents effectively. 'We have the calibre of player here who can attack quickly and if you link it back to a Cole Palmer or an Oscar Bobb, if you spend loads of time keeping the ball at the back with those players by the time it comes to the last line, the opponents are really well structured and organised and it becomes quite a sterile, negative experience. The way I want to see my teams play is to arrive much quicker and, once we have arrived, to finish attacks in a much more effective way.' It is a message he has sold to the owner and the initial reaction of the Cardiff fans has been positive. If the players also get the message, Barry-Murphy could be on to something.
