Amy Ryan - A Jockey’s Diary: Hoping to strike it lucky in Royal Ascot’s Wokingham Stakes lottery

It’s a fantastic meeting and, as it comes round only once a year, a great opportunity.

Although I’ve had a couple of winners at the racecourse, I’ve not struck lucky to date at the Royal meeting. Tomorrow would be the moment to put that right.

The horse I am riding is Bapak Chinta in the Wokingham Stakes at 4.25pm.

This is his third Royal Ascot in succession and he won the Group 2 Norfolk Stakes in 2011.

I imagine that he will be one of the outsiders in the betting but races like the Wokingham can be a bit of a lottery.

There will be 31 horses charging up the home straight over six furlongs.

There will not be a lot between plenty of them and my lad is carrying a nice low weight.

Duke Of Firenze, for the Sir Michael Stoute yard, is set to be a hot favourite but there’s no reason why my horse can’t be there or thereabouts at the business end of the race.

Bapak Chinta has had one run this season. That was in the Infinity Ecosis Tyres Stakes at the Betfred Dante Festival at York in the middle of last month.

He was ninth that day but the feeling at my father’s yard was that he was beginning to get back to his old form.

He has been working well at home and we go to Royal Ascot with a bit of confidence now.

I was very pleased to get a winner for West Yorkshire trainer Richard Whitaker this week.

That was on Pipers Note at Ripon racecourse on Wednesday evening.

It was his first win of the season after narrowly missing out in a race at Pontefract.

I think there is more to come from Pipers now and he could be a horse to keep an eye out for in some of the valuable sprint handicaps coming up over the four days of racing in July on Knavesmire.

My one ride today is also for Richard. That’s Wotalad in the maiden race at Redcar at 5.40pm.

He’s yet to win in his six previous efforts but this could prove to be a good opportunity. It doesn’t look the strongest field on paper and there are only seven runners. Fingers crossed.

In last week’s column, I said I was heading to Bath races and was hopeful that Danfazi could win his maiden for Yorkshire trainer Kristin Stubbs.

And so it proved. I was especially delighted because I have been friends with Kristin for years.

It made the long journey south-west worthwhile and my only disappointment was being beaten only a head on Devon Diva, who was a 50-1 shot.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any luck this time last week on Knavesmire during the two-day June meeting.

Chooseday was joint favourite in the Bell Trailers 25th Anniversary Stakes but finished mid-division. He probably needs a little more juice in the ground.

Although I wasn’t on course, I was massively impressed by the 12 amateur riders who took part in the Macmillan Charity Race at York. A super £65,000-plus was raised for the charity by the race, which was won by Venetia Wrigley riding Extraterrestrial, from the yard of York champion trainer Richard Fahey.

Dad was relieved to learn that, though a special victory, it doesn’t count towards this year’s title race so the success of Yorkshire Relish on Friday keeps us tied on three apiece so far this year.

The day as a whole, I am told, raised over £340,000 and counting which is a superb effort by all concerned, including those Yorkshire Post readers who attended on the day and so played their part.

That takes the total raised over the 43 such race-days to some £5.8m – just brilliant.

The next racing at York Racecourse is the John Smith’s Cup Meeting on Friday, July 12 and Saturday, July 13. The second day features the 54th running of the John Smith’s Cup.

On the day admission ranges from £5 to £24 on the Friday and £7 to £36 on the Saturday. As always, accompanied under-16s are admitted free of charge to all areas.

More information can be found online at www.yorkracecourse.co.uk or by calling the racecourse on 01904 620911.