One of the most historic races of the season takes place at Carlisle on Saturday. It's the oldest handicap run in Britain - dating back to the 16th century !!

A healthy field of 17 go to post for this year's renewal worth £30,000 and finding the winner looks difficult.

The stats show that in recent years a horse that has just come into form stands a great chance in this race and with that in mind we'll take a chance with TOP DIRHAM to repeat his success of 2003 in this race. He ran well last time out at York when taking fourth in a decent looking race.

The Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot on Wednesday has gone to an unbeaten filly in each of the last five runnings so that helps us narrow the field somewhat.

Three fillies are unbeaten in this year’s race – and at the likely odds we can back all three and show a profit whichever one wins.

PRINCESS IRIS and SUNLEY GIFT would be the preferred winners as they are both likely to go off at least 14/1. Sunley Gift upset her better fancied stable companions when winning well at Newbury and has a live chance. Princess Iris made all to win at Nottingham on her debut and has a lot of potential.

But the unbeaten filly with the best chance is ROXAN from the all-conquering Kevin Ryan yard who won a listed race at Beverley on her racecourse debut – a race that looked decent at the time so that was a superb effort.

Fingers crossed for one of the three.

What a day for sports betting – if England v Sweden wasn’t enough – the five-day Royal Ascot meeting gets underway on Tuesday.

Racing has definitely come home – the meeting was transferred to York last year as the course was being redeveloped and although they have had one trial meeting the jury remains out on how well the new stand will cope with the masses at Royal Ascot – and more importantly for punters – whether the re-positioned track will show any biases – particularly in the races where the runners split into two groups.

The early few races will be crucial in terms of keeping an eye on the draw. Two races where you can forget the draw are the 4.25 (only 9 runners) and the 4.55 (2m 4f). In the Queen Anne Stakes at 4.25 PROCLAMATION can win this for Godolphin who have saddled four winners from their last six runners and are very much back at the races.

The marathon Ascot Stakes at 4.55 can fall to a feather weight – SHAMAYOUN at the foot of the handicap looks well in and has the excellent Nicky Mackay onboard.