Welcome to Just Horse Racing’s news and discussions for Day 1 of the Royal Ascot racing carnival. Join Morgan Payne and Andrew Hawkins live from Ascot racecourse to share and talk about today’s racing which includes two Australian runners ‘Ortensia’ and ‘Helmet’ as well as England’s best racehorse ‘Frankel’.

Join the Cover-it-Live blog below, with Andrew’s live thoughts below the chat.

1:56pm (10:56pm AEST) – Welcome to Just Horse Racing’s live blog from the first day of the world’s biggest racing carnival, Royal Ascot. It’s Andrew Hawkins and Morgan Payne here, live from the English capital London. Today begins five nights of insomnia and obsession from Australian racing fans as they follow this most prestigious of race meetings from halfway around the world. As you will find, each day of the five day carnival has only six races on the card – quite different to Australia’s big meetings, which normally have 9 or 10 races. The first two races are of the most interest to Australians – the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes over a mile, featuring the world’s best horse Frankel and three time Group 1 winner down under Helmet. It should be a walk in the park for Frankel, and the atmosphere on track is electric for this top miler. His race jumps at 2:30pm, which is 11:30pm on the eastern seaboard in Australia. Then, it is time for Ortensia to fly the flag for Australia in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes (1000m), which Australia has won four times – with Choisir (2003), Takeover Target (2006), Miss Andretti (2007) and Scenic Blast (2009). She faces 23 rivals in the straight race, which jumps at 3:05pm here (12:05am AEST). So get ready for a big day here, I will be posting my selections. I’ll answer any queries you may have about the carnival. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the day’s racing too. You can contact us in a number of ways – send me an email at [email protected], tweet me at @AndrewNJHawkins or comment on the Just Horse Racing Facebook page. I hope you’ll enjoy our coverage of the 2012 Royal Ascot Carnival.