Royal Ascot 2026: horse racing updates from day five – live

• Latest updates from Saturday’s race card

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3.05 HARDWICKE STAKES preview

This is officially a Group Two event but it is a Group One in all but name, with no fewer than five previous winners at the highest level among the dozen runners. That list includes Goliath, the King George winner over this track and trip in 2024; Ethical Diamond, the surprise winner of the Breeders’ Cup Turf for Willie Mullins at Del Mar last November; and Jan Brueghel, a Classic winner in the St Leger in 2024 and also the winner of last season’s Coronation Cup at Epsom. The market is headed, though, by Andrew Balding’s Kalpana, a dual winner of the Group One race for fillies’ and mares over this trip on Champions Day in October and also the runner-up behind Calandagan – the top-rated horse on the planet last year – in the 2025 King George. She looked as good as ever, if not perhaps even better for another winter, when successful in the Aston Park Stakes at Newbury in May and will take all the beating.

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