The last £100,000 Royal Ascot handicap is the Golden Gates, a contest for three-year-olds over one and a quarter miles.

It goes without saying that the field us full of improving types and it’s up to use to determine who we believe is improving fastest, along with whether or not they are truly handicapped fairly.

As one of the newer races at this meeting, the Golden Gates doesn’t provide us with much in the way of reliable stats and trends. We do have plenty of recent form to go through however, that sending us in the direction of these six runners: 

Main Contenders

Canute

Though this is admittedly very simplistic thinking, there aren’t many horses at all in Aidan O’Brien’s yard who will remain as handicappers, much less rated in the low 90’s. Canute off 93 therefore may just be very well handicapped.

Indeed, after being stepped back up to ten furlongs in a handicap last time out this horse was smashed up at 10/11 and subsequently scored very easily at Navan.

On the flip side; he’s gone up 11lbs for that win having only been rated 82 before and it’s possible he didn’t beat anything of note.

Knockbrex

Charlie Johnston was asked at Chester for a horse to follow at York last month and he named this one. In the end, Knockbrex could only manage fourth place in his handicap but upon reflection that was a very good run.

He had to rice wide in the early strides and attempted to make much of the running, ultimately serving only to set the race up for others. Chesspiece was the well backed winner of that race and he is now with Godolphin and contest a Group 2 the other day.

This is only Knockbrex’s fifth career start and it would seem there’s definitely more to come from him this summer.

Laafi

Laafi is an interesting horse for top trainer William Haggas, coming into this on the back of only three runs so far.

He was handed a Derby trial on only his third start which was a confident move, and while as it turns out he wasn’t ready for that, he did finish fourth behind Military Order.

In that Lingfield trial he was just over six lengths behind Waipiro, the horse who won the Group 3 Hampton Court this week and is heading for a mark of around 112. Based on that form and his likely improvement, Laafi is fairly well in off 97.

Lion Of War

Another one for Charlie Johnston. Lion Of War is the horse who won by ten lengths at Newcastle last year and looked like he was going to the top.

Though he hasn’t reached Group race heights, he won the Edinburgh Cup very well last time and is now rated 90. He could yet have more to come.

Local Dynasty

Charlie Appleby is having a real in and out time of things, but the quality of his horses and his skill shine through eventually and we cannot rule out his Local Dynasty.

His form figures are 15113. The fifth placed finish was behind Chaldean in a Group 3 on his second start, while his third last time was despite bad ground in Listed company when he hung badly and stayed on towards the end.

This horse is likely to be a Group animal and will most likely pass the 110 mark. He’s in here of 100, but when he reached his heights is a question we can’t answer yet.

Ziryab

At the time of writing, Ziryab is just first reserve for this race but we desperately hope he gets a run as he’s the best handicapped horse in the race.

He was given a mark of 88 for winning last time but really, he did his own work from the front and hit the line comfortably and was worth a good 4lbs more than that. So far, that means he has run to marks of approximately 78, 87 (behind Mostabshir) and 92.

He is improving plenty and if he gets a run of 88 he’ll be very well treated indeed.

Summary

A case can be made for every one of these. We hope ZIRYAB gets in and if so, he’s the recommendation.

Should he not get a run, then CANUTE is probably the safe play but at the odds we couldn’t put anyone off having something each-way on Local Dynasty.