Horse Racing Tips: Calandagan to retain King George crown

There's a good mix of Flat and jumps action on offer across the afternoon and evening and there are seven thoroughly entertaining meetings in total in Britain and Ireland on the day. Ascot gets us underway and their feature race is the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, while York hosts the Group 2 York Stakes and the day's other meetings are staged at Gowran Park, Chester, Newcastle, Lingfield and Salisbury.

Among our strongest fancies on our horse racing tips on Saturday, is a French raider in the King George, who looks well set to claim back-to-back victories in Ascot's 1m4f Group 1 and will prove hard to beat.

14:35 York - Damysus @ 3/1

A field of five has been declared for the York Stakes and the Group 2 contest looks fairly open. Dante Stakes winner Item heads the market, but he is fairly easy to oppose off the back of his disappointing display in the Derby and DAMYSUS could be the one.

Second in last season's Dante, Pride Of Arras, who also lines up here, got the better of him that day but Damysus appears to be the better horse at four. John & Thady Gosden's colt landed the Group 3 Darley Stakes over a furlong shorter trip on his final start last season.

Impressive over the same course and distance on seasonal debut, he didn't have the pace for Group 1s over a mile but performed with credit in the Queen Anne and the Lockinge.

Returning to this sort of trip should suit and the yard is operating at a very good strike-rate.

14:55 Ascot - Extremely Zain @ 15/8

The fiercely competitive Moet & Chandon International Handicap is offering up plenty of prize money and the 17-runner event looks like a very interesting puzzle. William Haggas runs the unbeaten EXTREMELY ZAIN, who has every chance of taking his record to 4/4.

He made his debut in an admittedly weak novice event at Newcastle in December, but managed to get the job done in very good style, pulling clear to score by six lengths. Connections then put him away for the winter and he made a winning return to action.

Haggas' colt defied a penalty to score narrowly at Newbury back in May and impressed once again on handicap debut at York after that, where he was well on top at the finish.

His new mark of 101 means he’ll need to step forward but the three-year-old is very much entitled to.

15:35 Ascot - Calandagan @ 13/8

French trainer Francis-Henri Graffard has a strong hand to play in the top middle-distance races in Europe this season, with two bona fide Group 1 horses to go to war with. One of those is six-time Group/Grade 1 winner CALANDAGAN, who is set to take his chance here.

Launching himself into the big time last year, he won the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud in very good style last summer, before launching a successful raid in this race last year. He got the better of Kalpana that day and should have her covered this time around too.

Graffard's five-year-old impressively dispatched Ombudsman in the Champion Stakes here in October and his record suggests he's even better over 1m4f. Obviously the son of Gleneagles sets the standard here and it'll take a huge performance to topple him.

Check out our NAPs Table daily to find a list of the experts' best bets