Stars on display on Royal Ascot's opening day

Millinery, etiquette, champagne, sunshine and the some of the finest

Thoroughbreds the world can offer provide the customary blend as Royal Ascot

2008 gets underway Tuesday. All the stylizing aside -- the track is even staging its

own fashion show this year featuring the eccentric displays of Philip Treacy and

Vivienne Westwood -- it is the track action which provides the focus for racing's

purists. As The Duke of Devonshire, Her Majesty the Queen's Representative and

Chairman of Ascot Racecourse outlines in his introduction to the Royal meeting's

media guide, this year's renewal will open with three Group 1 races for the

first time in its near 300-year history.

Some of that rich ancestry is evident

in the name of the very race which has changed the face of this year's opener as

the King's Stand S. (Eng-G1) joins the Queen Anne S. (Eng-G1) and the St James's Palace S.

(Eng-G1) in its

newly elevated status. Named after the initiative by King George IV to bring the

nation's elite to survey the scene in 1845, the five-furlong dash is the fourth

contest to have been promoted to the highest level since 1999.

This year, prize

money will total £4 million for the first time, none of the 30 races will be

worth less than £60,000, and the leading jockey will sport a yellow Tour de

France-inspired armband as the riders take on a more central role in

proceedings. Perhaps the main attention surrounds the hat-trick bid of YEATS

(Ire) (Sadler's Wells) in the traditional showpiece, the Gold Cup (Eng-G1) which was

inaugurated in 1807. No horse since the Francois Boutin-trained Sagaro has

achieved the feat and Susan Magnier and Diane Nagle's seven-year-old will be

bridging a 31-year gap since that great stayer wrapped up the third of his

successes in a golden age of the race.

"There will probably be around 285,000

people this week and we're really happy with the site and the racecourse,"

Ascot's PR Chief Nick Smith said. "We're trying to engage the crowds and the

jockeys more this year and make them more integrated. We have three Group 1s

to start the first day, which is absolutely amazing and the Aussies are back in

town."

Some of His Highness the Aga Khan's finest have gone to post at this meeting and

he can count Kalanisi (Ire) and Valixir (Ire) among them as winners of Tuesday's Queen Anne since the turn of this century. This year's contender is the

supplemented SAGEBURG (Johannesburg), who sets up an intriguing family

clash with Princess Zahra's filly sensation DARJINA (Zamindar). While the

pair have already met, with Sageburg coming off 2 1/2 lengths to the good in

Longchamp's Prix d'Ispahan (Fr-G1) May 18, their trainer Alain de Royer-Dupre is

uncertain as to which will prove best here.

"I think Darjina is better now than

she was in the d'Ispahan, as she had not completely returned to her best and she

is very well," he commented. "Sageburg needed time to mature, but has progressed

and I think a mile is good for him rather than going longer. It will be very

close between them."

It is rare that a three-year-old filly can prove capable of shaking up the older

ranks of battle-hardened sprinting colts and geldings, but in FLEETING SPIRIT (Invincible Spirit) there is a real livewire in the division and she

bids to deal some more blows in Tuesday's King's Stand. High-class as well as

consistent at two for the Searchers syndicate, she was unbeaten over this trip

and found only one too good in Natagora (Divine Light) when tackling an extra panel in the

Cheveley Park S. (Eng-G1) at Newmarket in October. Her next start was in Haydock's Temple S.

(Eng-G2) on her sophomore bow May 24, where she smashed the track record.

"I am

very happy with Fleeting Spirit," trainer Jeremy Noseda commented. "Her build-up

has gone well and she appears to be in tip-top order. It looks as if she will

get her favored fast ground -- now we'll just ask for a good break and a little

bit of luck in running."

It has become clear that the St James's Palace is a prime focus for Ballydoyle in recent years, and a 50 per cent strike rate since the millennium

year shows Aidan O'Brien targets this prize with unerring intensity. Like Rock

of Gibraltar (Ire) six years ago, HENRYTHENAVIGATOR (Kingmambo) is on hallowed

ground as a dual Guineas winner attempting a formidable trio here and Susan

Magnier's star in the ascendant holds all the aces. Ballydoyle's leading man

looked a cut above as the conqueror of the subsequent Epsom Derby (Eng-G1) hero New

Approach (Galileo [Ire]) first narrowly at Newmarket May 3 and more comprehensively at The

Curragh three weeks later and could be among the very best to have gone to post

for this event.

When asked in a recent interview with the Sunday Times to

compare him to the "Rock" and another previous winner in Giant's Causeway,

O'Brien said, "This fellow is quicker than they were and I don't think the move

up to 10 furlongs would bother Henry in the slightest. He can go to sleep in his

races, wake up when he needs to and produce that killer kick, which makes it

difficult for any other horse. If we keep doing a proper job with him, he will

show himself to be an exceptional horse."