WHAT are the chances of a classic winner for King Charles and Queen Camilla on the weekend of their coronation? Well, it is not an impossibility, but the current odds of 20/1 are about right.

Slipofthepen is their classic hope for the Group 1 2000 Guineas at Newmarket, and he remains unbeaten in two starts after adding a mile conditions race on the all-weather at Kempton on Monday to an earlier victory over the same course and distance last November. The son of Night Of Thunder (Dubawi) was bred by Charles’ late mother, Queen Elizabeth.

One of three winners for his dam Free Verse (Danehill Dancer), Slipofthepen’s other siblings are the multiple winners Frontispiece (Shamardal) and Bookmark (New Approach), successful five and four times respectively. Other than the royal couple, many will be hoping that Slipofthepen goes on to become at least a group winner, given that almost all of his siblings, mostly fillies, have been sold by The Royal Studs.

This is a family that served Queen Elizabeth well over many years. Free Verse won a couple of times and she was one of six winners out of the US Grade 3 winner Fictitious (Machiavellian). Free Verse’s full-brother Quadrille (Danehill Dancer) came close to giving his owner/breeder a winner at Royal Ascot in 2010, going down by a short head in the Listed Hampton Court Stakes.

Pied Piper

Free Verse is a half-sister to dual winner Pure Fantasy (Fastnet Rock), and she was culled by The Royal Studs last year, being purchased for 72,000gns by Hamish Macauley and Joey Logan. This was no surprise really as Logan, acting for the Brown’s Caldwell Construction, gave 225,000gns for Queen Elizabeth’s Pied Piper (New Approach), the first foal out of Pure Fantasy, and he has earned a large chunk of that price back, winning a pair of Grade 2 hurdle races and being placed in two Grade 1 races, including the Triumph Hurdle.

Fictitious is a full-brother to Group 2 Geoffrey Freer Stakes and Ribblesdale Stakes winner Phantom Gold (Machiavellian). Their dam was a daughter of Expansive (Exbury) who gained the only win of her three-start career in the 1979 Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes at Royal Ascot.