Racing Post

Hoping for a fitting finale for racing’s greatest fan

David Carr on a day when the Queen could provide a perfect ending to Royal Ascot

THE show must always go on, but things are never quite the same without the biggest name, are they? Was Monty Python’s Flying Circus quite so funny without John Cleese? Did Eastenders pack such a punch after Barbara Windsor left? Was Taggart as good without, well, Taggart?

So it has been at Royal Ascot these last two years. That ‘Royal’ tag is hugely important, whatever some might feel about the hoopla of the pageantry, procession and the rest.

For all that this may be the greatest five days of Flat racing anywhere in the world, it is the connection with royalty that brings it to the attention of the uninitiated, those poor souls who probably think the Queen’s Vase is where the choicest roses at Sandringham end up.

Which is why it is such exciting news that Her Majesty – with four runners to cheer on today – could be set to make her first appearance at the meeting since 2019.

None but ‘essential personnel’ attended last year’s behind-closed-doors affair, while the Prince of Wales, Princess Royal and Earl of Wessex have been attending in her stead so far this week.

For it is abundantly clear that this is no tiresome chore for the Queen, done out of a sense of duty: while racing patently gains hugely from her presence, it is equally obvious that there is nowhere else she would rather be.

She caught the racing bug at a young age and the excitement – verging on glee – with which she watched her own filly Estimate win the Gold Cup here in 2013 was testament to an ambition fulfilled.

Nor is that an isolated success for a woman who inherited the royal string of horses on the death of her father George VI in 1952 and had her first winner when Choir Boy took the Royal Hunt Cup the following year.

There have been 24 altogether at a meeting she had only previously missed twice in her 69-year reign, both times when pregnant.

Tactical was the latest to carry her famous purple and gold silks to victory, galloping clear in front of the empty grandstand to take the

Windsor Castle Stakes last year.

And the Queen’s racing manager John Warren let slip in a radio interview earlier this week that the Andrew Baldingtrained three-year-old appears to be fancied for the Jersey Stakes.

That is no surprise judged by the way the colt won the Free Handicap at Newmarket the last time he raced over this 7f trip – and soft-ground Nottingham winner Light

Refrain gives the owner a decent back-up if the heavens continue to open.

Reach For The Moon, a grandson of the Queen’s 1995 Ribblesdale Stakes winner Phantom Gold, looks to need to improve on the form of his Yarmouth debut second if he is to emulate Free Agent, who took the Chesham in the royal colours in 2008.

However, King’s Lynn has been favourite for the Wokingham ever since he hinted that he could be a Pattern-race sprinter in the making when winning in Listed company at Haydock last month.

That notion did not look at all fanciful here on Tuesday when the progressive fouryear-old was stopped in his run in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes yet was still beaten little more than three lengths behind Oxted.

EVEN with a 5lb penalty, he is racing off a mark fully 7lb lower than had the handicapper been able to take his Haydock run into account and has every chance of giving his owner her first Wokingham – and first success in one of the straight course cavalry charges at this meeting since Colour Sergeant took the Royal Hunt Cup for Balding’s uncle, Lord Huntingdon, in 1992.

However her four runners get on today, we will all have plenty to look back on with joy from this week.

Think of the brilliant milers Palace Pier and Poetic Flare, Stradivarius-slayer Subjectivist plus emotional wins for Paul Hanagan and Laura Pearson.

Warren spoke of Her Majesty’s “deep fascination” for racing, which offers “a very broad escapism for all the other things that the Queen has to deal with in her life”.

In which regard she is not very different from you or I, is she?

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2021-06-19T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-19T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://racingpost.pressreader.com/article/281500754207899

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