King George VI Ante-Post Tips: 40/1 Deauville makes Tony Calvin's Ascot pair

• Ground good to soft for two-day Ascot meeting

• 40/141.00 for Deauville Legend is not bad at all

• 33/134.00 may underestimate Simca Mille

Everyone has been getting very jiggy about the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes at 15:40 at Ascot on Saturday for a while now, and with good reason, so I just hope the weather doesn't put a dampener on it.

The current going for Ascot's two-day meeting starting on Friday is good to soft (soft in places) and the forecast for the week is for rain every day. Not huge amounts but consistently dreek, as Racing TV's resident Jock, Gordon Brown, would say (apparently some readers are saying it is spelled "dreich" but you get my Highlands drift, either way).

For example, there is very little rain expected on three days on the main weather site I use, but a whopping 15mm was forecast on Thursday, until that was revised on Monday afternoon to just 4.5mm.

Those wild fluctuations are par for the course these days but I am working on the basis of soft ground at a minimum on Saturday afternoon, so I hope that doesn't scare off too many of the contenders.

Well, actually, it can scare off 13 of the 15 for all I care, for reasons I will come to.

You can keep an eye out yourself on the excellent weather site that Ascot provide. I find these live sites quite addictive (1mm so far on Monday, by the way).

Hold your horses on under-rated Hukum

There were 19 in the race before Monday's five-day stage at midday, when Aidan O'Brien was responsible for seven of those, and we are now down to 15.

We have lost Adayar (expected as William Buick had been booked for Desert Crown), O'Brien's Changingoftheguard, Tunnes and Grand Alliance.

I have long held the view that Hukum is the most under-rated, top-level performer in the UK ever since he handed Pyledriver his ass in a 4 ¼ length Coronation Cup romp last year - the handicapper gave him a mark of 122 for that but he could have gone a fair bit higher if you ask me - but I suppose that is understandable given we have only seen him once since that uber-impressive Epsom win.

But that one outing saw him outspeed Desert Crown by half-a-length in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes over 1m2f at Sandown in late May, defying a marked market weakness as the money poured in for the Derby winner that night.

And he did it after having to wait for a run.

I can see where people are coming from when saying the delay he encountered in getting a run there actually aided his chance but, even so, I would rather home in on the turn of foot he showed to pick up Desert Crown (who had been going extremely well at home and was considered plenty straight enough for his return, as the betting suggested) over a distance his previous record suggested was well short of his best.

But is he an ante-post betting proposition at 4/15.00?

I would be all over him at that price against all of these rivals once the race becomes a non-runner no-bet after the overnight decs at 10am on Thursday, but there is a nagging doubt as to whether he will turn up.

Or should I say whether he will turn up in top shape.

Now, I am not suggesting for one moment he is not 100 per cent as I write this - and there has been a steady stream of money for him in recent days, with the last 9/25.50 in the ante-post marketplace being taken about him on Monday morning - but he did suffer what was initially thought to be a career-ending leg injury after Epsom and he did miss Royal Ascot because of the ground.

I just get the sense they have to mind him after the injury, and that isn't ideal for ante-post punting.

But, while heavy ground would be an unknown for him, soft would quite obviously be fine - form figures of 131 on soft, with one of those successes being a six-length win in a Cumberland Lodge over course and distance - and I have no doubt he is the best horse going into the race, although he has to give the 3lb sex allowance to Emily Upjohn and 11lb to the 3yos.

All things considered, I think Hukum goes off favourite, so I couldn't put you off a small win-only bet on him at this stage at 4/15.00 with the Sportsbook if you wanted an interest. He is currently 5.49/2 on the Betfair Exchange as this goes live, and there is also one firm again offering 9/25.50 to be transparent.

However, as I will come to later in the piece, I am going to take two bigger swings tipping-wise and leave him out of the equation for now.

Epsom 1-2 renew rivalry

Derby runner-up and impressive King Edward VII Stakes winner King of Steel heads the Sportsbook betting at 11/43.75 (4.67/2 on the Exchange) and I can half-see that, as he is a soft ground winner who will enjoy the conditions as a giant unit of a horse. He also looked an improved one when winning at Royal Ascot. The O'Brien team think a fair bit of the second, Continuous.

And you could make a fair stab at arguing that he shaped better than the winner Auguste Rodin did at Epsom - he hit 1.29 in running when looking to make a race-winning move there - and he has progressed since, while no-one is going to suggest the O'Brien colt improved in the Irish Derby.

On the other side of the coin, we know 10/34.33 chance Auguste Rodin handles heavy ground, if required to.

Either way, I am against the Epsom 1-2 at the current prices, though both are obviously far more tempting propositions win-only on the Exchange. Both are at least a point bigger there.

Eclipse runner-up Emily Upjohn is next up at 4/15.00 in the Sportsbook betting and she obviously has the form to win, but she has never raced on anything worse than good to soft and connections presumably want the forecast to continue to improve. She is 6.25/1 on the Exchange.

I'd want bigger than 11/26.50 about Desert Crown - though again he is bigger win-only on the Exchange at 8.27/1 - given he has had a rushed preparation for this, though against that the masterful Sir Michael Stoute would not risk him unless he thought he had him at a perfect pitch for Saturday.

Then again, they thought that was the case against Hukum at Sandown in May and he came up short there.

Pyledriver, who has won twice here since being treated with contempt by Hukum last season, is actually the highest-rated horse on 124 going into the contest and a price of 9.617/2 on the exchange is probably something of an insult given the way he danced home in this race last season.

But, again, his career record suggests he wouldn't want it any worse than soft.

And, to be honest, he is one of those horses that I have never really warmed to. Which doesn't make any sense obviously, given a hugely attractive profile, but I guess we all have all our top class horses that we don't rate as highly as we should.

O'Brien still has six in here but it will be surprising if Adelaide River, Broome, Bolshoi Ballet, Luxembourg and Point Lonsdale all rocked up. However, it would give the stable an enviable tactical hand, I guess, if they did and the 122-rated Luxembourg would be interesting going up to 1m4f for only the second time.

The Arc run last year was inconclusive as regards to his stamina and he would obviously be no 16/117.00 chance if rocking up. Keep an eye on his Exchange price for clues.

Ascot - Saturday 15:40 - Back Deauville Legend

Deauville Legend ran well when fourth to Pyledriver on his return in the Hardwicke - he didn't get a clean trip or racing room on the insider in the closing stages - and I don't think his price of 40/141.00 is that bad at all, though all his form in this country has come on decent ground.

I have no idea if his Melbourne Cup fourth on soft equates to soft ground over here, though Timeform do, so that is probably good enough for me.

For a horse having just his 10th start on Saturday - and he was confirmed as on target for the race by his trainer on Sunday, when he would have been fully aware of the weather forecast, so you'd hope he wouldn't pull him out because of testing conditions - I really warmed to him at 40/141.00 the more I looked at his chance.

He ran a huge race in the Melbourne Cup when probably not quite staying 2m in the soft ground (the trip was surely the main issue there) and I have looked at his Hardwicke run a couple of times today, and I would have liked to see how much closer he would have got there with a clean run.

Presumably he will have come on a lot for that race, his first since Flemington in November, and I think he is a horse with upside given his profile. At 40/141.00 I am paying to find out anyway.

Ascot - Saturday 15:40 - Back Simca Mille

I wouldn't like to be laying Hamish at 100/1101.00 if it got heavy but he made very hard work of it in Group 3 company at York last time.

The 20/121.00 chance Westover would prefer a decent surface to run on but a bit of slop would be fine for Simca Mille, who was very impressive in a Group 2 over 1m4f at Chantilly last time. I appreciate the form was modest in Group 1 terms, with the second stuff in a Group 3 since, but the style was there.

A price of 33/134.00 on the Sportsbook may be more than a touch dismissive about his chances.

Hs earlier second in the Ganay over an extended 1m2f was a fine effort (he saw off Bay Bridge in a tussle but got mugged by the closer Iresine, a horse he had previously beaten at Longchamp, on the outside) and maybe they have kept him fresh for this. A run in the Grand Prix de Saint Cloud in early July (a race won by Westover) was discussed as a possible target for him after that Chantilly win on June 4th.

In fact, I gather that is the case.

In summary, I really like Hukum for this, but I can still see him being around the 4/15.00 mark should he run and the field stands up to a large degree (I have had a very small nibble on him at 9/25.50 myself on Monday).

Deauville Legend at 40/141.00 and Simca Mille 33/134.00 are the better trades at this stage. Back them both win-only with the Sportsbook.

I just hope James Ferguson doesn't have second thoughts about the ground for Deauville Legend because he must know what is coming on the weather front. That is the reason why I am going win-only and not each-way.

Right, I think I have mentioned all 15 entries, so I will return on Tuesday with a piece on the other weekend races that have been priced up.

Market move puts Moet on ice

I was going to include the 7f Moet And Chandon International Handicap in this column, but there was actually a Monday morning move for the horse that interested me most, Baradar, before the five-day entries were made at midday - the Sportsbook cut him from 14/115.00 to 11/112.00 at 11am, and a lot of 20/121.00 and 16/117.00 in the marketplace was also hoovered up at the same time - so I am going to let that market settle down, and the others to appear, before having a shufti on Tuesday morning.

Good luck.

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