15:05 Royal Ascot – Dawn will see a mountain of money on O’Brien’s star
Published:All eyes will be on the Ballydoyle stable once again on Sunday as Await The Dawn looks to justify odds-on favouritism in the Hardwicke Stakes.
Aidan O’Brien and Ryan Moore will team up once again at Royal Ascot this week, and having been beaten on So You Think, Moore will be desperate to steer Await The Dawn to victory.
Await The Dawn is the 4/5 favourite and the Hardwicke Stakes is a race in which the class horses come to the fore and favourites have won two of the last three renewals with Harbinger justifying odds-on favouritism last year.
Punters are looking for a horse that gets the mile-and-a-half trip and so winners over the 1m4f distance are a huge positive, which happens to be a huge negative against Await The Dawn.
However Await The Dawn’s last win was in a Group Three race at Chester on his last start and he is easily the classiest horse in the race.
The ground would be a worry for connections if there was to be any more rain, but with a win on good ground at Leopardstown to his name, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Harris Tweed will relish the cut in the ground and connections of the four year old will be hoping for more rain tonight and should it come, he looks a big each-way price at 16/1.
Outside of Await The Dawn, the rest of the field are fairly evenly match with Drunken Sailor the second favourite at 7/1 and then six horses priced between 12/1 and 16/1.
It’s hard to see the Ballydoyle horse being beat but should the rain come, there may be more value in backing Harris Tweed each-way.
