Royal Ascot 2015: Queen’s Vase preview (17.35)

Aloft looks potentially a cut-above his rivals in the Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot, and a worthy favourite to provide in-form top Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien with another winner of the 2m Listed contest.

The Ballydoyle handler has won three of the last eight renewals, and in Aloft has a colt who showed top class form as a juvenile.

After finishing a promising runner-up on his debut at Gowran Park, Aloft showed a good attitude when running on strongly and finding plenty to beat Strom The Stars by a neck in a 1m contest at Newmarket.

The runner-up has developed into a top class three-year-old, landing a Listed contest at Goodwood before finishing a superb third to Golden Horn in the Invesetec Derby, and the form looks extremely strong in the context of this contest.

Aloft rounded off 2014 with an even better performance when runner-up to Elm Park in the Group 1 Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster, and was given a rating of 109 on the back of that effort.

That gives the three-year-old 9lb and upwards in hand on his rivals in this, and although Aloft has not run for 237 days he is unlikely to be found wanting through lack of fitness given connections.

Aloft also steps up significantly in trip, but it should not be an issue and the son of Galileo has a similar profile to Landing Light who won this for O’Brien in 2013 before going on to land the St Leger and last year’s Gold Cup.

O’Brien also saddles Bantry Bay, who built on a promising effort when runner-up on his debut to run out the easy winner of a 1m 2f contest at the Curragh last month and looks a promising sort open to further improvement ow stepped up in trip.

Fabricate has won his two start in the manner of a progressive sort, and the Michael Bell trained colt looks sure to make a bold bid to land the hat-trick in the colours of the Queen, whilst Yarrow is a very interesting contender for Newmarket handler Sir Michael Stoute.