Three-time Gold Cup winner Stradivarius and jockey Frankie Dettori are the headline acts on Gold Cup day at Royal Ascot and the roof could come off the Ascot grandstand if one of the most popular horses in training lands the week's blue-riband contest.
Stradivarius is a general 2-1 second favourite to make amends for last year's defeat in the race and equal the great Yeats but the eight-year-old will need to be at the top of his game if he's to topple Aidan O'Brien's unexposed stayer Kyprios, who heads the betting at 11-8. The Gold Cup market has been reformed this morning after the defection of Trueshan who didn't get the ground he needed.
Stradivarius isn't Dettori's only big ride today because the Italian is the man that could well give The Queen a hugely popular Royal Ascot winner in the year of her Platinum Jubilee.
