Hugo Palmer Royal Ascot Day Five blog: 'He had been running well'

Esteemed trainer Hugo Palmer is back with an exclusive Coral blog, running us through his runners on Day Five of Royal Ascot 2024, Newmarket and Haydock.

Flaming Rib is one of two runners for us in the Wokingham, and he’s got a reasonable draw in the middle of the track in stall 16, so there should be no excuses from there.

The ground at Ascot is very very fast, and although he’s won on quick ground before, he might just prefer a little bit more juice in it. Although he did disappoint us in this race last year, I do think Ascot suits him, and that’s underlined by the excellent performance he put in when second in the Commonwealth Cup here two years ago.

It’s a big field, and it’s a very competitive race, but if he can return to something like his best form, then he’d be extremely competitive off a mark of 102.

Roman Dragon was a reserve for this, but there is a non-runner in here, so he’ll get a run which is fantastic for his connections. He obviously tends to put up his best performances at Chester, and he did let us down a little bit at Hamilton last time, but prior to that he had been running well. 

He performed very well on a straight track in Bahrain earlier in the year, so he can do it away from Chester, and Hayley Turner knows him well and has won on him a few times, so if he can run like he did over in Bahrain, then he could well be capable of outrunning his odds.

Things just didn’t quite go to plan for Grey Cuban last time, and although he ran well to a point, I just don’t think he was in love with the track at Epsom that day. Ascot is obviously a more conventional track, and he seems in good form at home, so I’m hopeful we’ll see a return to form from him.  

He does have a tricky draw in stall 1, so he’ll certainly need a lot of luck from there, but hopefully Hollie Doyle can get him into a good position, and he’s another who could perform better than his odds suggest.

How Impressive is in great shape at home, and although things didn’t quite go his way at Hamilton the last day, I thought he ran with plenty of credit. He’s been dropped a pound, so he’s now below his last winning mark, and he could be very well handicapped considering that he’s not been running badly at all of late.  

Conditions should be fine for him down at Newmarket, and the track there often suits frontrunners, so we’ll look to be positive on him and go from the front, and hopefully nothing will catch him.

Wonder Smile is another horse who’s been in cracking order at home of late, and I thought he did much better for being gelded last time when second at Salisbury.

I think he just bumped into a very well handicapped horse of Sir Mark Prescott’s that day, so hopefully there’s nothing like that lurking in this race. He has gone up 2lb for that effort, so he will need to step forward again, but it still is relatively early days for him, so I’d be disappointed if there wasn’t a bit more to come. 

There are a few interesting types in here, so it won’t be easy, but as I say, I hope he’ll step forward again from that last effort, and I don’t expect him to be too far away.

He’s a horse who’s had plenty of racecourse experience with all his stall tests and racecourse gallops, so hopefully he can put that to good use at Haydock this weekend.

He doesn’t have the best draw in stall 9, and although he was a slightly disappointing favourite at Chester last time, his debut effort at the May meeting was very pleasing, so he certainly has the ability to win this if he can bounce back from last time.

It’s quite a valuable little race, and I suspect Ed Bethell’s horse Intrusively will be the one we’ll have to beat, but we have a little bit more experience than him, so hopefully we can put it to good use and get off the mark at the third time of asking.

It’s very annoying that He’s A Gentleman hasn’t won on turf yet, because he has run some good races on the grass. He didn’t give his running at Musselburgh last time over 7f, so we go back up in trip here, and I’m hoping that will see a return to form from him.  

He’s ran at Haydock on a few occasions and ran very well, so the track should suit him, and we have Mark Winn taking off a valuable 3lb, so hopefully he can break his duck on the turf this weekend.

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