Tony Calvin Royal Ascot Antepost Tips: Twilight the call and Broome can sweep away rivals

Tony Calvin
07 June 2022
3:00 min read

Tony Calvin has two early tips for next week's Royal Ascot meeting

Join

View market

Twitter

Facebook

For this weekend's antepost column Tony Calvin has taken an early look at next week's Royal Ascot meeting, and our man has two tips for you to consider...

"... he is a 4yo on a steep upward trajectory and what this horse wants is to be delivered late in a strongly-run race (the favourites will ensure that) over a stiff 5f and this race fits the bill."

Twilight Calls at 15.014/1 each way in King’s Stands Stakes with Betfair Sportsbook at Royal Ascot on Tuesday

The weekend racing can wait because I have spent the last two days pouring over the Royal Ascot ante-post markets for the Racing Only Bettor podcast preview of the meeting - it will be out from Tuesday night onwards on your favoured social media channels - and I have found two decent each -way bets.

I hope.

Twilight the call against the foreigners in Tuesday's King's Stand Stakes

First up is Twilight Calls at 14/1 each way, three places, with the Betfair Sportsbook in the King's Stand Stakes on Tuesday.

Call me insular, but I am eager to take on the front two foreign raiders who dominate the market.

I never need a second invitation to oppose a Wesley Ward horse, especially Golden Pal at sub-2/1, a horse who has shown all his best form around a bend in the States (obviously) and been beaten in both starts in the UK, most recently when blowing out at 5/2 in the Nunthorpe.

If the Chris Waller Aussie speedster Nature Strip comes over and dots up here as a 7yo I will take my medicine, too - if you back him at 3s then a lot of guesswork is obviously involved - but to me Twilight Calls stands out as the coming force in the 5f division.

And of course, we have the place safety-net to fall-back if the international form proves too strong, too soon.

This horse has serious vibes about his former stablemate Twilight Son about him, and not because that horse is actually his sire.

Henry Candy has had some fine Group 1 sprinters through his hands and hopefully Twilight Calls is ready to announce himself on the big stage now, too.

Twilight Son made rapid progress from winning a Newmarket handicap off 83 to Grade 1 success a few years back for the Candyman, winning the Golden Jubilee at this meeting, and his son Twilight Calls is treading a very similar path.

Ascot Royal Hunt Cup 1280.jpg

He hosed in off 94 in a Newmarket handicap on his return, saw too much daylight in the centre of the track in the Palace House at the same course next time, and then shaped like very much the best horse in the race when just touched off by Kings Lynn in the Temple Stakes at Haydock last time, a race in which he surely would have won with a clean run (and I acknowledge cases can be made for the placed horses at their respective prices, too)

I also appreciate he needs to improve markedly on that run but he is a 4yo on a steep upward trajectory and what this horse wants is to be delivered late in a strongly-run race (the favourites will ensure that) over a stiff 5f and this race fits the bill.

He strikes me as the big likely improver in the race, and I'd have him nearer 8s than 14s.

Maybe, 10s if we are splitting hairs (which obviously I cannot do).

Take Broome to brush aside Hardwick Stakes rivals

Now, obviously we don't know running plans at this stage - so ante-post warnings apply - but surely that can work in our favour by using Hurricane Lane to dictate our betting strategy in the Hardwicke Stakes on Saturday.

Broome is still in the Gold Cup and Prince Of Wales's at the time of filing, but surely this is the race for him and I am happy to take the risk at 8s each way on the Betfair Sportsbook.

Hurricane Lane pretty much wins if he turns up here - well, turns up on his A-game, at least - but we haven't seen him since the Arc, he is a shade of odds-on and you have to think he has had a setback since last autumn to be rocking up here without a prep.

Broome certainly has had his issues as apparently he got badly injured in the stables after the Japan Cup, so it took them a while to get him sorted out afterwards, so connections must have been delighted with his fifth in the Tattersalls Gold Cup over 1m2f on his comeback.

Back up to 1m4f (hopefully), the distance of all of his best efforts - including a Group 1 success, a second in this race last season and his narrow second at the Breeders' Cup last autumn - he is a ground-versatile performer who is very good when he is on song.