5:35 Royal Ascot: Rent Free to be the latest big-priced winner

Big-priced winners have been relatively frequent in the Windsor Castle Stakes in recent years and this bodes well for Rent Free in what looks like another wide-open renewal at Royal Ascot.

Half of the last ten winners of the 5f dash have been priced at 14/1 or over, with Flashmans Papers landing the spoils at odds of 100/1 in 2008.

Although Rent Free is not that big a price in the Royal Ascot odds at 33/1, he certainly has shown the speed in the past to mount a strong challenge.

Rent Free was slightly hampered in his debut maiden when eventually finishing fifth at Thirsk, but the form of this race has since worked out reasonably well with the second and third both winning in recent weeks.

Nigel Tinkler’s two-year-old has also triumphed since, when running on strongly in the closing stages to comfortably pull clear of Red Art at Ayr.

Another factor in the favour of Rent Free is that he will enter stall three, with an inside draw against the rail a definite advantage in the sprint contest.

Frederick Engels will rightly go off favourite for the Windsor Castle Stakes at 4/1, based on the form he has shown so far, winning impressively at Musselburgh following solid second-place finishes on his opening two starts behind some bright prospects.

However, only one favourite has won the two-year-old race in the last ten runnings, while Frederick Engels will also not benefit from being drawn towards the middle of the track.

This is also a problem that may affect Worthington, who is looking to trainer Richard Fahey with a second successive victory in the race.

Worthington is 8/1 in the Royal Ascot odds and won well on his only start to date, particularly after running green for a large portion of the race.