Last updated 8 September 2026. Dates and enclosure details verified against Ascot Racecourse’s published information.
Five days in June when the flat season empties its trophy cabinet. Royal Ascot is 35 races, a royal procession up the straight before the first every afternoon, and some of the best horses on the planet. It is also the week that decides how the summer goes for a lot of bookmakers.
When is Royal Ascot 2027?
Tuesday 15 to Saturday 19 June 2027, at Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire.
The week, day by day
Eight Group 1 races across the five days, plus the big cavalry-charge handicaps that most of the money goes on.
| Day | Group 1 races | Big handicap |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | Queen Anne Stakes (1m), King Charles III Stakes (5f), St James’s Palace Stakes (1m) | Ascot Stakes (2m 4f) |
| Wednesday | Prince of Wales’s Stakes (1m 2f) | Royal Hunt Cup (1m) |
| Thursday | Gold Cup (2m 4f) | King George V Stakes (1m 4f), Britannia Stakes (1m) |
| Friday | Coronation Stakes (1m), Commonwealth Cup (6f) | Duke of Edinburgh Stakes (1m 4f) |
| Saturday | Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes (6f) | Wokingham Stakes (6f) |
The Gold Cup
Thursday’s Gold Cup is the race the meeting grew up around. It was first run in 1807, it is staged over two and a half miles, and it is the sternest test of a stayer in the calendar.
Aidan O’Brien has won it ten times, a record he extended in 2026 when Scandinavia held off the previous year’s winner Trawlerman under Ryan Moore. That result also brought up O’Brien’s 100th Royal Ascot winner.
Lester Piggott rode 11 Gold Cup winners between 1957 and 1982 and no jockey has got near it since. Only one horse has won the race four times: Yeats, in four straight years from 2006 to 2009.
| Year | Gold Cup winner |
|---|---|
| 2026 | Scandinavia |
| 2025 | Trawlerman |
| 2024 | Kyprios |
| 2023 | Courage Mon Ami |
| 2022 | Kyprios |
| 2021 | Subjectivist |
| 2020 | Stradivarius |
| 2019 | Stradivarius |
| 2018 | Stradivarius |
| 2017 | Big Orange |
| 2016 | Order Of St George |
| 2015 | Trip To Paris |
How to watch
ITV Racing carries all five days live and free in the UK, on ITV1 and ITVX.
Getting in, and what it costs
| Enclosure | What it is | From |
|---|---|---|
| Windsor | The informal one. No formal dress code, and you can take a picnic in | £25 |
| Queen Anne | The main public enclosure: grandstand, parade ring, singing round the bandstand | £80 |
| Village | On the Heath, added in 2017 | Varies |
| Royal Enclosure | Members and their guests only | On application |
The Windsor Enclosure is the one to know about if the dress code puts you off. There isn’t one, beyond the obvious, and you can bring a picnic.
A bookmaker’s week
James Lovell has stood at Royal Ascot from the other side of the counter, and the DragonBet family once held a pitch there.
“We used to have a pitch on the members’ rail before selling it some time ago. You’d be amazed how many of those ‘top hat and tailers’ don’t like betting anything more than a pound or two. The money they spend on their outfits would buy a small house in the Valleys of Wales, but the thought of having a fiver on a horse is obviously a bridge too far.”
His account of the 2023 meeting is the best short guide there is to how the week actually feels for a bookmaker. Wednesday was the day that made it, with Mostahadaf winning the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at 10/1 and beating Luxembourg, which he called one of the firm’s most profitable races to date. Jumbly earlier the same day had been “a really big liability (over 10K)”.
Thursday they got away with one. Coltrane, whose price they had “pushed out to 4/1 in the morning”, was beaten into second in the Gold Cup. Friday reminded them what the week can do, when Frankie Dettori won on the 6/1 favourite Coppice carrying bets including a £500 win and a £300 each-way.
On the subject of Dettori, David Lovell wrote something before the 2023 meeting that is worth any punter’s attention:
“Even on a normal Ascot meeting, the amount of Frankie doubles, trebles and accas are frightening. If you fancy putting a few of his rides together, I’d do it sooner rather than later as come the day a lot of firms won’t be accepting the bets.”
The Welsh at the royal meeting
Flat racing’s Welsh contingent is small and busy. Bargoed’s David Probert leads it, one of the most in-demand riders in the weighing room, and Danny Muscutt, born in South Africa and an adopted Welshman, is the other name to follow. Monmouthshire trainer David Evans has had his own Royal Ascot success with the sprinter Rohaan.
Wins are hard to come by. In 2024 Probert’s best was fifth in the Coronation Stakes on See The Fire, with Metal Merchant three and a quarter lengths back in the Royal Hunt Cup. Our Welsh view of the meeting and the week in review track it year by year.
Betting on Royal Ascot
Thirty-five races in five days, with international raiders, unexposed two-year-olds and 20-runner handicaps. Two things matter more here than at most meetings.
Draw bias on the straight course can decide a race before it is run, particularly in the big sprint handicaps, and it moves with the ground. And the each-way terms in those 20-plus runner fields are worth checking before you commit, because the number of places on offer changes what the bet is actually worth. The each-way guide has the standard terms, and anything in this piece you don’t recognise is in the betting glossary.
DragonBet prices every race of the week on our horse racing odds page, with previews in the Royal Ascot section as the meeting approaches.
18+. Please gamble responsibly. Free confidential support is available from GambleAware on 0808 8020 133, and you can self-exclude from all UK-licensed online operators through GAMSTOP.
Sources: Ascot Racecourse for dates, enclosures and ticket prices; Gold Cup winners and records per the published race history. Bookmaker accounts quoted from DragonBet’s own From The Dragon’s Mouth columns, June 2023. Correct as of 8 September 2026.
