Best Royal Ascot ever?

[Posts: 10793Joined: 10 Feb 2003, 15:43Location: Scotland]

It had the best horse in the world.

It had the second best horse in the world.

It had the world's best racehorse trainer in the Royal Ascot winner's enclosure once again.

The Queen won the Queen's Vase.

Frankie won the Gold Cup.

The sun shone (for much of it).

The Germans won.

The English won.

The Irish won. (In fact they had a great week with O'Brien, Wachman, Mullins, Weld, Marnane and Bolger all on the scoresheet).

The Aussie won.

Even Hong Kong had a winner.

Northern winners, Southern winners, Newmarket winners and Manton winners.

In fact, everyone won but the French.


What a great Ascot. I'm struggling to recall a better one.

[Posts: 1612Joined: 11 May 2010, 14:41]

Plus the greatest flat racing performance of all time - officially!

Completely agree Corm!!!

[Posts: 572Joined: 27 Jul 2011, 18:11]

Best I can remember too. Absolutely loved every minute.

[Posts: 12301Joined: 22 Dec 2007, 19:24]

Absolutely!

Best one I can remember, but then again I do have alzheimers.

[Posts: 1368Joined: 06 Jul 2007, 11:28]

...apart from one of Princess Haya's outfits [pink and orange], then yeah.... especially Saturday - that was electric. Tuesday for others.

...just as well we didn't have a BBC technician's strike, as we did in 1975.

[Posts: 4487Joined: 03 Sep 2007, 22:56Location: Milton Keynes]

Plus the TRF / ORS Racing dream team were there

Yes I agree it was a fantastic five days racing with something notable every day and far, far better than I had expected it to be.

Apart from the big two, I was really impressed with the finishes of Princess Highway and Energizer on Thursday.

It's also a great shame Black Caviar running yesterday has somewhat eclipsed the brilliant performance of Simenon's fantastic double at the meeting - well done to the Mullins team.

It was bl**dy knackering and non-stop though, I'm just glad all meetings aren't that frenetic (sorry RFC!!!)

Hope you had a good trip back David

[Posts: 1426Joined: 03 Jan 2008, 21:49Location: Lowton,Cheshire]

Even as someone who prefers the Jumps i have to say that for me this years Royal Ascot was better than the Festival which for me was a bit lackluster and not as vintage as this years Royal meeting.

Loved it when Frankel demolished the field in the Queen Anne Stakes, we are so fortunate to have this amazing horse racing and he will leave such a huge legacy when he retires.

The Gold Cup had a great finish but for me the training performace of the week was Willie Mullins with Simenon winning the two long distance events.

I shall ignore the Black Caviar race as that has been done to death but it is great to see that this meeting can attract horses from Australia,Ireland,France and Hong Kong, apologies to any other nations i may have forgot, It just shows that Horse Racing is THE only international sport where you can run in any country in their races.

[Posts: 211Joined: 11 Feb 2011, 22:25]

David,

I'm glad you started a thread along these lines - far too much negativity and whinging about. Let's celebrate the positives for a change!!

Highlights for me:

Tues
- Frankel - Say no more
- Fallon riding a fantastic race on Most Improved
- Dawn Approach maintaining his unbeaten record

Weds
- Farhh showing trememdous acceleration in the POW. He was some certainty for the Thirsk Hunt Cup on that evidence. One to follow.

Thu
- Frankie showing his young apprentice who is boss in the Gold Cup.

Fri
- Sir Henry 1-2 in the King Edward
- Ryan Moore giving Estimate a textbook ride (one of many in the week imo)
- Newfangled taking the Albany apart

Sat
- Sea Moon showing he is a seriously good horse
- The drama of BC
- Ryan Moore doing the double on Simenon

All in all a fantastic 5 days racing. Just goes to prove that you don't need a Champions Day in October to prove anything. The flat season moves in timeless fashion and this end of season tweaking is a serious waste of money.

I think the likes of Cheltenham now need to up their game. I'd say every race this week had some sort of intrigue and interest but I'm afraid the festival has gone a bit stale in comparison.

I'm very disappointed that this is the last year the BBC will be providing coverage. Yes some of their team are past their best but I think C4 will find it difficult to match them.

W Carson comes in for a lot of criticism but his knowledge of breeding and race riding is excellent. Take yesterday where Clare was saying the Chesham was being run at a fast pace. He quickly put her right that it was a slow run race and then talked comprehensively about the breeding of the winner and potential to stay a mile etc. I'm appalled that the BBC are putting so much money into F1 racing and leaving horse racing for dead.

Finally, for anyone that attended, did they think that £70 was value for money? It's a hell of a lot for one day's racing.

As an aside an interesting thread could be individuals doing a review of their raceday versus various criteria - say admission price / food + drink costs & quality / viewing / accessibility / race quality etc. I'm sure we'd get some interesting but varying reviews. Who would like to start based on their Ascot experiences this week??!!

[Posts: 10793Joined: 10 Feb 2003, 15:43Location: Scotland]

Great post OD -

One negative for me was that in the pre-parade they paraded Black Caviar in a circle at the top end of the ring - up at the posh end. I waited an hour to see her. It may have been to keep her away from the horses coming back from the Harwicke but that doesn't wash really as they still had to pass her. It seemed that those at the expensive end were being given precedence.

However, she did spin right around once and she was in the actual paddock itself for a fair while so can't really complain too much.

On the subject of the pre-parade ring. I saw about half a dozen near-misses in there this week and finally a lady got a hefty smack on the stomach/side from a horse lashing out on the Friday. I overheard the lasses who were leading the horses saying 'that was waiting to happen' and so it was.

It is a problem on most courses, not just Ascot. Some of the owners have not got a clue that they have to be constantly aware/vigilant when there are horses, particularly racehorses, around.

[Posts: 3440Joined: 06 Jul 2007, 11:38]

One great colt and one very good mare do not the perfect Royal Ascot make.

For me, there have been more memorable Royal Ascots overall.

[Posts: 975Joined: 20 Sep 2011, 16:52]

I'm very disappointed that this is the last year the BBC will be providing coverage. Yes some of their team are past their best but I think C4 will find it difficult to match them.
W Carson comes in for a lot of criticism but his knowledge of breeding and race riding is excellent. Take yesterday where Clare was saying the Chesham was being run at a fast pace. He quickly put her right

It will certainly have been a first if Willie Carson put Clare Balding right on something.
She has spent the last few years repeatedly putting him right, prompting him and translating his gibberish into intelligible English.
His knowledge of breeding and race riding is certainly good. But, as with Tanya Stevenson, the case for the defence is always that they "know their stuff". Lots of people know their stuff. It's just that, for broadcasting, you ideally need to be able to speak fluently and grammatically.
Some of the BBC team are certainly past their best but I agree that the prospect of Channel 4 covering Royal Ascot and the Grand National fills me with a lot of foreboding. I know they are deemed to do Cheltenham well but Royal Ascot might be a very different kettle of fish, leaving aside the adverts issue.

[Posts: 1505Joined: 30 Oct 2007, 14:08]

One great colt and one very good mare do not the perfect Royal Ascot make.

For me, there have been more memorable Royal Ascots overall.

Saying that without naming the years and logic is a little lazy. Please expand your condemnation of the opening post.

[Posts: 425Joined: 26 Nov 2011, 22:29]

It was a brilliant week. Frankel had me chuckling with incredulous delight.
Had corkers with Little Bridge, Joviality and Thom. Chippendale. Bit sad at passing over Fallen to back Starscope but you cant have everything etc. Punting low: allowing spotlight to dissuade me from Dandy Boy.