By Emma Berry
Ascot's Royal Enclosure has been in existence since 1822, when King George IV built a two-storey stand, primarily to entertain his friends, with access granted by his invitation only. Today, the Queen's first in command at the course, otherwise known as Her Majesty's Representative, is Johnny Weatherby, whose forebear James Weatherby was in 1773 given permission by the Jockey Club to publish the racing calendar. The family firm also oversees the General Stud Book and continues to be racing's administrator.
In these customer-friendly days, it's likely that Weatherby takes a more lenient view about who can and cannot enter the Royal Enclosure than that taken by one of his predecessors, Viscount Churchill, who became the first representative of the monarch at Ascot in 1901 and was reported to divide applications into three piles: Certainly, Perhaps, Certainly Not.
An absolute certainty at the modern-day Ascot is that there's nothing the course's international head-hunter Nick Smith loves more than an overseas winner of a big race. For years we've stared in wonder as Australian sprinters have torn up the Ascot straight, but this year we wondered how Tepin (Bernstein), mighty though her six-straight win record coming into the G1 Queen Anne S. was, would cope with a straight turf track softened by frequent deluges throughout the previous 24 hours.
Tepin's owner Robert Masterson said as he greeted his majestic winner, “She had no drugs, no nasal strips, none of the things that everyone was worried about in the paper before the race. But we didn't know how soft the ground really was, how she would cope racing on the straight, or how she'd come up the hill. She had a lot of things to overcome.”
But Tepin did overcome, and in the opening race of five sensational days of action, America's Queen of the Turf took the race named in honour of the British monarch who first identified Ascot Heath as the perfect place to stage racing and brought the sport to Berkshire a little over three hundred years ago.
Just half an hour before Tepin's victory, the present-day monarch, fresh from an extended weekend of 90th birthday celebrations, had charted the same course, albeit in a horse-drawn carriage, as part of a time-honoured tradition of the Royal Procession which has taken place every year since 1825. Despite the fact that Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall now have horses in training and several broodmares––with the homebred runners Carntop (GB) (Dansili {GB}) and Pacify (GB) (Paco Boy {Ire}) entered to run at Ascot later in the week–– there is still concern that the royal family's patronage of racing will dwindle in ensuing generations.
Newmarket trainer Charlie Fellowes, who, as the son of Baron de Ramsey, is more formally known as the Hon. Charles Fellowes, joined the procession for the first time, and it is fervently hoped that in the drive through the Great Park from Windsor Castle to Ascot Racecourse he managed to convince his carriage companion and the Queen's grand-daughter, Princess Beatrice of York, of the joys of racehorse ownership.
If the Queen Anne S. has its roots firmly in Ascot history, so too does the G2 Coventry S., which is named after the 9th Earl of Coventry, a former Master of the Buckhounds––the managerial title predating Her Majesty's Representative.
The first juvenile group race of the English season is in danger of being renamed in honour of Aidan O'Brien, who won it for the eighth time with Caravaggio (Scat Daddy). Each of the first two races of Royal Ascot will have had the American breeding industry rueing the premature death of a promising young stallion. In the case of Scat Daddy, who died last December, Caravaggio was a third 2-year-old Royal Ascot winner in four years after No Nay Never and Acapulco.
For many, the most anticipated race of the whole week was the G1 St James's Palace S. which, for the first time in 20 years, brought together the winners of the English, Irish and French 2,000 Guineas. Back in 1996, Ashkalani (Ire) (Soviet Star), Spinning World (Nureyev) and Mark Of Esteem (Ire) (Darshaan {GB}) could muster only second, sixth and eighth-place finishes, but Tuesday's race provided the perfect clash of the Classic titans, with Galileo Gold (GB) (Paco Boy {Ire}) being chased all the way to the line by The Gurkha (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Awtaad (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}) for a high-class trifecta.
At a less sparkling level but no less special was the victory of the front-running hurdling mare Jennies Jewel (Ire) in the day's staying contest, the Ascot S. In his days in training, her sire, the Mill Ridge-bred Flemensfirth (Alleged), was a more than decent Flat horse, winning Group 1 races in France and Italy, while his one appearance at Royal Ascot came in the G1 St James's Palace S. of 1995. These days, the Beeches Stud resident is famed throughout the National Hunt community as a provider of top-class jumping talent, his many good performers including the GI Cheltenham Gold Cup hero Imperial Commander (Ire) and GI Lexus Chase winner Tidal Bay (Ire). Flemensfirth has few runners on the Flat but the extended trip and soft ground played right into the hands of the 9-year-old Jennies Jewel, who provided an unforgettable day for small Irish trainer Jarlath Fahey and his young jockey Ronan Whelan.
“It's what dreams are made of,” said Fahey after his first Royal Ascot win, while Tepin's trainer, Mark Casse, had said earlier in the day, “I couldn't even dream anything like this.”
Whether it's a Group 1 or a handicap, there are few results savoured more by owners and trainers than a winner at Royal Ascot.
'Like Nowhere Else' is the self-styled tagline for the meeting. With its mix of pageantry, high fashion and superb racing, there's no perhaps about it. It certainly is like nowhere else.
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