Royal Ascot 2019
Thursday 13th June 2019

Queen Anne's Royal Ascot

In 1711, Queen Anne, a horse lover and sports fan, identified a clearing that looked perfect for racing while taking a carriage ride through the forest near Windsor Castle.

The land was bought for just £558 and, on 11 August that same year, the Royal racecourse played host to its first race, ‘Her Majesty’s Plate’.

The race named in honour of it's founder, the Queen Anne Stakes, goes back to 1840 when it was known as the Trial Stakes. It was renamed in honour of Queen Anne in 1930 and is now the first race on the opening day of the Royal Ascot meeting.

The 1 mile race was promoted to Group 1 status in 2003 and has subsequently attracted some superstars of the racing world including Canford Cliffs, Goldikova and Frankel, possibly the greatest of them all.

This year's Queen Anne Stakes looks set to be a cracker, with the likes of Le Brivido, Hazapour & Romanised all on course to line up on Tuesday.

Royal Ascot is Britain’s most popular horse racing meeting, welcoming 300,000 racegoers across five days with 70,000 attending Thursday’s Gold Cup Day.

The most valuable race meeting in Britain with £7.3m in prize money is viewed in over 200 countries around the globe and features 8 Group One races and 19 Group races in total.

It has just been announced that Ascot Racecourse is intending to wash over 500,000 plastic glasses of all kinds during the Royal Meeting. I wonder what Queen Anne would have made of that.