Horse Racing Tips: Three to follow on Royal Ascot eve

Every Flat racing fan in Britain and Ireland will already be giving Royal Ascot most of their attention ahead of Tuesday's opener, but there are five meetings taking place on Monday and you won’t want to miss them.

Our horse racing tips for across the day includes a Simon & Ed Crisford-trained runner in the feature Class 3 6f handicap at Windsor.

19:00 Windsor - Durham Castle @ 9/2

The feature race at Windsor is a decent Class 3 handicap over 6f and there’s a decent prize pot of £20,000 on offer. A field of 14 has been declared and the lightly raced five-year-old DURHAM CASTLE could well be the one to side with on this occasion.

Simon & Ed Crisford’s gelding clearly isn’t the easiest to train, having had just seven starts in total, but the son of Havana Grey already has three victories to his name. Getting off the mark at the third time of asking, he landed a Southwell maiden in August 2024.

He has since landed two handicaps on turf, the second of which came in this very race last year. Improvement is anticipated from his seasonal reappearance on the all-weather last time out and it’s very possible that he remains significantly ahead of the handicapper.

20:00 Windsor - Marcellinus @ 3/1

Consistency goes a long way in this sport and the Tom Dascombe-trained MARCELLINUS is yet to finish outside of the first three in five starts. Third over course and distance on debut, there were plenty of positive signs and he lost a shoe on that occasion.

Another couple of placed efforts then followed in maiden and novice company and he wasn’t beaten far when second at Southwell in November. A gelding operation and the switch to handicaps did the trick as he managed to get off the mark at Bath in April.

Strong at the finish on that occasion, he pulled two lengths clear of his rivals in good style and was raised 7lb as a result. He was a little unlucky to bump into a well handicapped winner at Haydock last time out and should be capable of winning more races.

20:30 Windsor - Seventy @ 2/1

Newmarket trainer Ross Burden has two winners from three runners in the last fortnight at the time of writing and that definitely bodes well for his runner SEVENTY. This son of Ghaiyyath turned a corner in February and has managed to win twice since.

He was a really comfortable winner of an albeit weak race over 1m4f at Lingfield in February and managed to go in again here over a slightly shorter trip last month.

Mrembo narrowly got the better of him last time out but there’s a 1lb swing in his favour and that could be enough. Clearly he’s competitive off this mark and he probably has more scope for improvement than most of his rivals.