Racegoers at Royal Ascot next week can look forward to the Queen being in attendance as usual, despite speculation on Monday that she might be forced to miss at least one of the first four days of the meeting if the state opening of parliament is postponed from Monday to later in the week.
The Queen has been an enthusiastic owner and breeder throughout her long reign and the royal meeting at Ascot in June is said to be the first engagement that goes into her diary each year. Officials at Ascot believe she has not missed a single day’s racing at the meetings since her coronation in June 1953.
The five-day meeting begins on Tuesday and any one of the first four days could now be the new date for the state opening of parliament, when the Queen’s speech to both houses of parliament, setting out the government’s plans for the new session, is the centrepiece of the ceremony.
Ascot racecourse never comments in advance on any issues that concern the Queen’s attendance. However, there is an obvious precedent for next week’s possible clash of engagements, as the state opening of parliament took place on the second day of the royal meeting in 2001. The Queen attended a rehearsal for the state opening on Tuesday and then delivered her speech the following day, before travelling to the racecourse by car and arriving in time for the first race.
The royal procession down the middle of the course in horse-drawn carriages, which normally takes place about half an hour before the first race at 2.30pm, did not take place on either afternoon as the horses involved had taken part in the ceremonies at Westminster. However, this year’s state opening is due to take place without the horse-drawn carriages, so a mid-morning slot for the Queen’s speech, which is in any case expected to be shorter than normal, could allow her to perform the ceremonial duties in the morning and a more recreational role in the afternoon.
At present the Queen has only two horses entered at next week’s meeting: Call To Mind, an outsider, in the King Edward VII Stakes on Friday and the strongly fancied Dartmouth, who is priced at around 9-2 to win the Group Two Hardwicke Stakes on Saturday’s closing card for the second year running.
Jenny Pitman, who saddled two Grand National winners during an outstanding training career, and the former leading Flat jockey Philip Robinson are among the 23 members of the British Horseracing Authority’s new Disciplinary Panel and Licensing Committee, which will be responsible for hearing disciplinary cases and imposing penalties where necessary from early next month.
Pitman and Robinson both responded to a call by the BHA for former trainers and jockeys to put themselves forward for the new panel, the formation of which was recommended by Christopher Quinlan QC in a review of the regulator’s disciplinary and licensing procedures last year.
“I’ve worked in racing all my life and hopefully we can bring something to the table,” Pitman said on Monday. “If people are unfortunate enough to find themselves in an inquiry, I’m hopeful they will be satisfied with their treatment and the decisions that are made.
“I’ve worked with owners, stable staff, jockeys, vets, feed merchants, I was on the Lambourn Trainers’ Association committee and I’ve done a lot of stuff since I retired from training. The panel members who have done it from the grassroots, we’ve done it and didn’t read it in a book, so hopefully we’ll all be an asset to the panel in general. I haven’t got a legal brain but I’ve got common sense.”
Quinlan’s review was commissioned before the protracted disciplinary case involving the trainer Jim Best, which finally concluded in December last year when Best was banned for six months for ordering a jockey to stop two horses in races in December 2015. He had initially been banned for four years in April 2016 after an earlier hearing of the case, but that result was quashed when it emerged that Matthew Lohn, the chairman of the disciplinary panel, had accepted paid work for the BHA on non-disciplinary matters.
Several QCs, both current and retired, are also included on the new panel, including Patrick Milmo QC, an owner for many years, who also represented Jack and Linda Ramsden and their jockey Kieren Fallon in a successful libel action against the Sporting Life newspaper in 1998. Jodie Mogford, a former jump jockey and now an assistant trainer at Graeme McPherson’s yard, is also on the panel, but will not sit on any cases which involve a licensed trainer or in which McPherson, a QC who regularly acts for racing clients, is involved on either side.
John de Moraville, a former racing correspondent for the Daily Express who has been a handicapper for the BHA for nearly 20 years, will join the panel in November 2018, while Simon Rowlands, a form expert and the current chairman of the Horseracing Bettors Forum, also survived a selection process which involved 138 applications and 53 interviews.
Greg Wood’s tips for Tuesday
Lingfield
5.50 Sporting Times 6.20 Ghinia 6.50 Notice
7.20 Akavit 7.50 Manatee Bay 8.20 Elizabeth Bennet
8.50 Buzz Lightyere
Salisbury
2.00 Initiative 2.30 Groundnut 3.00 Razzmatazz
3.30 Secret Agent 4.00 Dubara (nap) 4.30 Loving Your Work 5.00 Topmeup
5.30 Swanton Blue
Southwell
6.00 Maxed Out King 6.30 Riddlestown
7.00 Polly’s Pursuit 7.30 Paddy’s Field
8.00 Beyeh 8.30 Amirr 9.00 Powderonthebonnet
Yarmouth
2.15 Tivoli 2.45 Hawkerland 3.15 Theydon Girls
3.45 Excel Again (nb) 4.15 Permanent
4.45 Chetan 5.15 Wotadoll
