15:45 Royal Ascot: second Gold Cup beckons for Colour Vision

Colour vision seemed to have the staying division at his hooves when striking in last year’s Ascot Gold Cup, but the rest of his season was passed without another success – a run which wasn’t ended when a disappointing seventh at Sandown on his season debut. Nonetheless, assuming that the rain stays away, there’s reason to believe he can etch his name onto the cup for a second year in succession.

A look at the going statistics among the Ascot Gold Cup contestants shows a distinct lack of past good-to-firm ground scorers, with Rite of Passage (7/1), Times Up (12/1), Number Theory (40/1) and Saddler’s Rock (7/1) the only runners in the field to previously win on the likely going.

The only ones that is except Colour vision, who has authored three wins – half his career successes –  from five runs on good-to-firm ground.

That his success in this race at last year’s meeting – beating established top-level stayers such as Opinion Poll and the re-opposing Saddler’s Rock in the process – came on good-to-soft suggests his performance that day can be upgraded.

Although his seasonal reappearance – dragging home 12 lengths behind a winner who had finished second in Listed company in France on her previous start – was undoubtedly underwhelming, it came after a lay-off of 222 days and was perpetrated on ground softer than ideal for the Saeed Bin Suroor inmate.

He was entitled to be somewhat below his best after such an absence, with another tilt at this valuable pot always the focus and should come on plenty for the run here at Ascot, a course with which he has a great affinity – the five-year-old has only failed to place in one of his four runs at the Berkshire track.

That he is still relatively fresh-faced and lightly-raced is in his favour too, with just two horses aged over six winning the race in the past 60 years.

He will certainly be vulnerable to the Queen’s Estimate (5/1), who is unexposed over this extreme distance and has the benefit of a fillies allowance for the contest. Meanwhile, Willie Mullins’ two-time Royal meeting winner Simenon (7/1) has an embarrassment of staying power to his name on the level.

Nonetheless at 12/1 Colour Vision is around double the price of that pair. With conditions in his favour and past win in the race under his belt, he rates a superb each-way bet at the prices.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.