Ascot 2020: Footy Accums' Beginners Guide to Ascot 2020

Royal Ascot 2020 is upon us and punters everywhere are planning for five of the biggest days of the flat season. The Royal meeting is traditionally the biggest festival within flat racing, with eight Group ones across five days of blockbuster action.

Royal Ascot 2020 will seem a little unusual however, with it being stages behind closed doors and will be ran in just the third week of the flat season. Due to this however, there are six new races to this year's festival, with seven on the first four days and there is an eight-race card to round the week up on the Saturday.

Horse racing isn’t necessarily everyone’s cup of tea however with little sporting action about at the moment, we want to try and get everyone involved in the fun across the five days of action, even if it’s just a few bets a day.

The action kicks off at 13:15 every day and runs until the final race starting at 16:40 however as mentioned an extra race on Saturday means the action will begin at an earlier time of 12:40.

There are 36 races in total at this year's meeting and many will be looking at single bets across every race.

Whilst a few wins could make that profitable, for other, more relaxed punters, the prospect of trying to solve a Royal Ascot Handicap could perhaps be a little daunting and instead they should look at trying to find some more secure bets and putting them together for a higher odds multiple.

There are lots of different multiple bets and perhaps choosing a horse from a few days you like and putting them together could broaden your interest through the week. The most popular multiple bets are often doubling and trebles, which consists of choosing either two or three horses and putting them together. For the bet to be successful, all the horses must win however the returns will be a lot more.

This is usually best when you fancy horses at short prices and putting them together could maximise returns. Due to Royal Ascot 2020 being so early on this year in the season, there aren’t a lot of short prices about however there are still a few you could combine.

Battaash is just 8/11 to win the King Stand on Day One after finishing second the last two years whilst Japan is 11/10 on Wednesday to win the Prince of Wale Stakes. You could also add on the ever-reliable Stradivarius at 1/1 on Thursday as he seeks for his third Gold Cup. This treble, for example, goes across three days and would make for interesting viewing.

The royal meeting is no doubt the biggest week of the flat racing calendar and the week usually sees the big names, both jockeys and trainers, coming to the front.

Even if you’re not a big racing man, you’ve probably heard the name Frankie Dettori and the Italian usually comes alive at Royal Ascot.

The 49-year-old has more than 50 wins at the meeting and notched up seven victories last year, more than anyone else. In those seven, included a famous four-timer on day three, when he won the first four races and was just touched off in the fifth.

Dettori does most of his riding for his boss John Gosden who is no doubt a trainer to follow but he was only second in the trainers' standings at last year's meeting to the ever-present Aidan O’Brien who will be fancied by many to be top trainer again this year.

O'Brien's main jockey is Ryan Moore who despite being touched off by Dettori last year is one of the most successful jockeys in Royal Ascot history and set a modern-day record of nine victories in 2015.

Moore has been top jockey at the festival four times in the last seven years and has some very well fancied rides this week to make that five.