The 2018 Prince of Wales’s Stakes, won by Poet’s Word, was officially Britain’s premier race last year, as defined by the globally ratified International Federation Of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA) Longines World Rankings. It was the third highest rated race in the world.
Poet’s Word
The 2019 renewal looks set to be one of the highlights of the Royal Ascot week (18 – 22 June 2019 ) with the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe runner-up Sea Of Class on course to meet last year’s Derby winner, Masar, along with Group One winning Japanese mare, Deirdre, and the rock solid Group One performer, Crystal Ocean.
Waldgeist is likely to add further international interest to the race for France following his win in the Prix Ganay, whilst Magical, Aidan O’Brien’s Tattersalls Gold Cup winner, is also in the mix.
When entries closed for the eight Group One races at Royal Ascot in April, nine nations were represented, including from outside Europe; Japan, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. This is still set to be the case come the big week in June.
This year’s Royal Ascot Meeting will be the first with their in-house betting service, Bet With Ascot, which launched last summer and is run in partnership with Totepool.
Available on-course at Royal Ascot to all visitors in 2019, it is a bespoke poolbetting operation focused on providing outstanding service and value to customers.
Royal Ascot
Exclusively for Royal Ascot, bets placed on-course in certain markets will be comingled with the Hong Kong Jockey Club to form a World Pool, generating greater liquidity for customers on-site.
This is expected to see UK liquidity increase significantly and should, in turn, provide customers with the potential for greater value for money.
Approximately 30 individual pools from 10 countries are expected to bet into the world’s first ever worldwide pool betting operation.
As well as the standard win, each-way and place bets, there are a series of exotic bets on offer including “The Survivor”, which is exclusive to Bet With Ascot.
The Survivor is a knockout bet, where customers try to pick the winner of each race to be the last man standing. In the event of more than one winner, a dividend would be declared based on the number of winning bets.
As part of Ascot’s wider corporate social responsibility programme, racegoers are invited to drop any losing Bet With Ascot slips into charity bins across the site to be in with a chance of winning a Fine Dining experience and £100 of Bet With Ascot vouchers. The charity with the most betting slips at the end of the year will receive a £1,000 donation from Ascot.
