2024 Ascot Gold Cup Tips - Ascot regular the value bet against Kyprios

It looks like this year's Ascot Gold Cup is Kyprios' to lose. The 2022 winner has scored on both of his prep-runs in the Vintage Crop and Saval Beg Stakes. Ryan Moore's mount won this race on his only previous start on quick ground. He's going to take plenty of beating.

I'm not a big fan of Gregory and I have doubts about Vauban's stamina over this extended distance. Trawlerman and Caius Chorister would both prefer softer ground, as would Sweet William and Trueshan, with the latter unlikely to even feature in the field because of the going.

One who will be suited to fast ground is COLTRANE (14/1). Andrew Balding's star stayer won the Ascot Stakes on good-to-firm and was touched off by Courage Mon Ami in this race 12 months ago, before reversing that form in the Lonsdale Cup later in the summer.

Coltrane will, again, head into the Gold Cup on the back of a victory in the Sagaro Stakes - a narrow triumph that took his record around Ascot to three victories and two seconds from six starts. Oisin Murphy's mount has come up short on all of his Group One outings so far, but I see no reason why Coltrane can't mount a challenge in this famous race once again.