Fleeting Spirit heading for Royal Ascot

Fleeting Spirit, the 3-1 favourite for the King's Stand Stakes, will head a 17-strong team for Jeremy Noseda at Royal Ascot next week, but the trainer stressed she still has to prove herself.
Traditionally, three-year-olds struggle against older, battle-hardened sprinters at Group One level, but the filly demonstrated when winning Haydock's Temple Stakes on her seasonal debut that she has the potential to reverse that trend.
Noseda admitted yesterday that he spent the whole winter worrying whether it was a mistake not to have sold her -until he started working her in May. "I soon got the impression she had not only trained on but moved forward a bit," he said. "It takes an exceptional three-year-old to beat the older horses but she won the Temple in the manner that I hoped and expected.

ROYAL ASCOT HORSES TO FOLLOW

ART CONNOISSEUR (Michael Bell)
At this stage of the season it is difficult to get a handle on the two-year-old form, but there is little doubt this Lucky Story colt is out of the top drawer.
A debut victory in a minor event at Leicester was followed up in a better race at Newmarket's Craven meeting, form which is continually franked.
It is going to take a special juvenile to stop him collecting in the Norfolk Stakes.
ANCIENT LIGHTS (Henry Cecil)
Surely no winner at the Royal Ascot jamboree would receive a warmer reception than one for a true legend of the game.
Henry Cecil has trained more winners at the meeting than anyone else and the last couple of years have seen a resurgence at his Warren Place yard.
He holds solid claims with Twice Over in the St James's Palace, but this once-raced High Chaparral three-year-old is one of the most fascinating contenders of the week.
An entry in the King Edward VII Stakes - the Ascot Derby - shows the regard in which Cecil holds him and he really could be anything.

About Royal Ascot

Ascot Racecourse is an English racecourse, located in the village of Ascot, Berkshire used for thoroughbred horse racing. It is one of the leading racecourses in the United Kingdom, hosting 9 of the UK's 31 annual Group 1 races, the same number as Newmarket. The course is closely associated with the British Royal Family, being approximately six miles from Windsor Castle, and owned by the Crown Estate.[1]