Marcus has made Precise his banker for Friday’s Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, tipping the filly to see off True Love in one of the meeting’s biggest races. The veteran tipster said Precise is the week’s banker, a vote of confidence that lands just as the five-day Royal meeting turns toward its first major fillies’ clash.
That call matters because Marcus, who has covered racing for more than 30 years, is not backing it on instinct alone. Precise won the Irish Guineas with a devastating turn of foot and now owns three Group One wins from four attempts, a record that gives the selection real weight. She also turned a five-length defeat to True Love into a two and a half length victory in Ireland, a swing that points to a clear change in the balance between them.
There is a simple reason the market will keep circling this race: the Coronation Stakes is run on quick ground, and Precise has already shown she can handle it by winning on good to firm ground at two. That matters because the question is not whether she can finish strongly — she already has — but whether Friday’s surface allows her to do it again against a stable companion who once held the upper hand. Ryan Moore has now chosen Precise over True Love for the Coronation Stakes, a decision that follows earlier picks that appeared to go the other way when the two fillies were separated.
Marcus, who rode Mr Frisk to Grand National victory in 1990 in a course record that still stands, has seen enough over three decades to trust the shape of the form rather than the memory of one race. Precise and True Love remain the pair everyone wants to solve, but the evidence Marcus is leaning on is hard to dismiss: the better recent performance, the stronger Group One profile and the proven ability to quicken when it counts. If Precise reproduces the Irish Guineas run on Friday, the Coronation Stakes may not be a puzzle for long.
