Last year’s race

• Winner: Haatem
• Jockey: James Doyle
• Trainer: Richard Hannon
• Owner: Wathnan Racing
• Age: 4 Weight: 9st 5lbs
• Starting Price: 8/1
• Season Form Figures: 54
• Previous Best: 2nd - Irish 2,000 Guineas (Group1), Curragh (May 2024)

By Paul Jones

This will be the ninth year of the Wolferton being a Listed race (upgraded from a Listed handicap) over 1m2f on the round course so new trends are still bedding in.

Since the race lost its handicap status, five of the last seven winners have been aged five or six whereas four-year-olds previously fared much the best so that’s a change worth noting. That said, it was a 1-2-3-5 for four-year-olds last season.

Half of the eight winners since the Wolferton was upgraded were sent off at 14/1+ with the favourite placing second or third in each of the five runnings previous to the 11/4 jt-fav Israr proving successful last in 2024 (and again last year) giving the Gosden stable their fifth winner of this race in the last 15 editions.

Wathnan Racing have targeted Royal Ascot in their short time since entering the sport and supplied the winner and third last year after the second and third in 2024 so they look like an operation to note for this contest. The late Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum has won two of the last five runnings, one of which for Roger Varian who has saddled two of the last six winners.

It usually features a double-figure field where they meet a bend after a furlong, so the draw can be important. What is a low draw towards the rail since the switch of stall numbers 14 seasons ago has been a little bit of an advantage as 15 of the last 21 winners at Ascot were drawn in what are now single-figure stalls. In fact, in the 2024 15-runner race, the best position that any of the six highest-drawn horses fared was back in eighth.

Winning form this season has been anything but essential as since the upgrade the eight winners could manage just one win between them earlier in the campaign from a combined total of 14 starts, one of which was winning on their seasonal debut.

Horses drawn in stalls 11 and 12 had overcome that in the previous two years, though those drawn in the lowest five stalls finished second, third, fourth and fifth in 2022. Addeybb also managed to overcome his draw seven years ago but he did go on to win two Group 1s in Australia and the Champion Stakes. A high draw is also easier to overcome on soft ground which was the case in his year.

In terms of official ratings since the upgrade, all eight winners were between the fairly-narrow band of 110-115.