Stand by for the finest five days of Flat racing anywhere in the world

It is the most famous racecourse in the world and it has the world's most famous race meeting.

Nowhere is there anything to rival the beauty, splendour or tradition of the British sporting crown jewel that is Royal Ascot. Once again, over the five magical afternoons set before us, we will be reminded there is substance to match the style.

In other places there are races that can offer riches far beyond those being staged this week. The dollars, dirhams, euros and yen those venues can flaunt dwarf the purses paid out at Ascot, yet nowhere do races carry the priceless prestige of those held annually across an extension to the Queen's back garden.

Horses have been flown from Australia, America, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore. They will compete against Europe's elite at a festival that for some participants can determine the success or failure of a whole racing year. It is that important. It is that good.

At 2pm each day the four-carriage royal procession will enter the racecourse from Windsor Great Park, making its way down the track in front of packed grandstands. Those grandstands will stay packed to savour Flat racing of the highest quality.

On Wednesday Sea Of Class, the filly who so nearly denied Enable in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, returns in the Prince of Wales's Stakes. On Thursday the sport's supreme marathon man Stradivarius bids to defend the Gold Cup. On Friday Hermosa and Ten Sovereigns give Aidan O'Brien, Coolmore and Ryan Moore a great chance of a top-flight double and on Saturday the 2018 Derby hero Masar makes his welcome return to racing.

Saturday also provides a platform for the sport's speed machines in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes. Even speedier machines will contest one of the opening day's three Group 1 highlights, the King's Stand Stakes, with Battaash seeking to avenge the defeat he suffered at Blue Point's hooves 12 months ago.

Battaash's trainer Charlie Hills has another favourite in the very next race, in which Phoenix Of Spain tackles the St James's Palace Stakes, attempting to prove his superiority over Andrew Lloyd Webber's Too Darn Hot around Ascot's round mile. Festivities begin at 2.30pm up the straight mile, over which Mustashry could give Sir Michael Stoute his 80th Royal Ascot triumph. The first came way back in 1977.

They are the card's three showpiece attractions but there is much else besides to keep us entertained, not least the beauty of a scene that could not be more British.

The sight of men in morning dress and silk toppers and ladies adorned in gorgeous dresses and hats makes Ascot seem blissfully timeless. It is, however, a place that keeps pace with the times. In a positive nod to inclusivity, cross-dressing is now permitted in the royal enclosure, while all restaurants and boxes will provide the option of plant-based menus.

Veganism has come to Royal Ascot. Johnny Weatherby, the Queen's representative at the racecourse, recommends you try the celeriac gnocchi with nettle pesto. If you do not fancy that you surely will fancy the racing, whose ingredients are yet again the world's finest horses and riders.

May it please your Majesty. Looking at what lays in store, it almost certainly will.

Ascot sighter leaves Hills excited

The extent to which Charlie Hills cannot wait for what is to come is borne out by the fact he was at Ascot on Monday, preparing himself for perhaps the biggest day of his career so far.

Hills liked what he saw. Once the action begins he hopes to like it even more.

The Lambourn trainer has won three royal meeting races, the latest coming courtesy of Muhaarar in the 2015 Commonwealth Cup. Four years on he could field the favourite in back-to-back Group 1 races, with Battaash contesting the King's Stand Stakes – in which Hills also saddles Equilateral – 40 minutes before Phoenix Of Spain's bid for glory in the St James's Palace Stakes.

Battaash: favourite for the King's Stand StakesCredit: Grossick Racing (racingpost.com/photos)

"I always think the opening day of Royal Ascot is one of the best we have in our sport," said Hills. "With three Group 1 races it really gets the meeting off to a bang. To have two live chances on the day is a dream for me.

"I'm pretty relaxed at the moment. I think I am anyway! As Tuesday morning goes on the more wound up I'll get. Once I arrive at the track I'll just want to keep moving.

"These are Group 1 races, so I know it won't be easy. Life isn't like that. It always has its ups and downs."

So, too, does the racecourse, which the young trainer marvelled at on Monday.

"I walked from the mile and a quarter start and it's in great condition," said Hills. "The ground is exactly as they described it and it will be drying because of the strong breeze."

Queen Anne can throw up another great story

One of the very best stories of 2018 was played out in the Queen Anne Stakes. While this year's renewal again lacks a superstar performer, there are plenty of super tales to be told.

First there is last year's winner Accidental Agent, who gave trainer Eve Johnson Houghton the first Group 1 triumph of her career.

"It's great, unbelievable, ridiculous, something I just cannot believe has happened," said Johnson Houghton, but it happened, thanks to a horse owned and bred by her mother, Gaie, and named after her grandfather, John Goldsmith, a World War II special operations executive who escaped from the Gestapo.

Accidental Agent: Gaie Johnson Houghton's homebred flies home in the Queen Anne StakesCredit: Alan Crowhurst

So many would love it if Accidental Agent won again but they would also love to see victory go to the tremendously popular Yorkshire lass Laurens, who was coached by Karl Burke to floor opponents from the sport's biggest operations in four Group 1 races in 2018.

Then there is Barney Roy, back in training and back at Royal Ascot, where he landed the 2017 St James's Palace Stakes before being retired at the end of that year to take up stud duties.

Sadly, fertility proved to be a problem, and he has returned to the day job. For that reason, we should not call him a romantic winner. Romance and Barney Roy proved not to be happy bedfellows.

Mullins leads the jumps charge

Royal Ascot may be Flat racing's most celebrated fixture but day one has always given the jumps fraternity a chance to shine.

Willie Mullins last year saddled four of the first five home in the Ascot Stakes, taking his record to four wins in the last seven years.

Mullins this time has just one runner but he can take solace from the fact it is the Ryan Moore-ridden favourite Buildmeupbuttercup.

Also trying to bag the race again are Nicky Henderson and David Pipe, while past winners of the County Hurdle and Kerry National are due to enter the stalls.

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