Royal Ascot - la tour de punt

By Scott Ferguson

The highlight of the English flat racing season is Royal Ascot. Just like every owner in Australia wants a runner on Melbourne Cup day - in Britain, they dream of having one good enough to race in front of the Queen.

Ascot itself is an amazing racecourse. Barely a year after it was reopened after £70+ million refurbishments, the facilities really are fit for a king (or queen in this case). The track is approximately two miles around with a straight mile course as well. It is flat by British standards, with small undulations in comparison to the likes of Cheltenham or Epsom. Racing is held there 26 times a year with a mix of flat (April - October) and jumps (Oct - April) with a rare 'mixed' card for the transition between seasons.

The new grandstand is something to behold - over 400m long, five levels and four of them are for corporate boxes. Amongst the many bars inside the stand is one named after the trail-blazing sprinter from NSW, Choisir. The ground level has no seating whatsoever, just tiered terraces for standing room leading down to the bookies ring (always out the front in the UK and Ireland) and the viewing area on the lawn. The lawn viewing areas caused a bit of a stink when the track was first re-opened - after spending all that money, they made the lawn flat and below the level of the track! A costly mistake with nearly £10 million in landscaping required to correct the problem.

The Royal Ascot meeting is pretentious to say the least. £54 (about $130) for general admission and then 'gentlemen will be refused entry without a shirt and tie'. Never fear if you roll up without a tie, you can buy a decidely bland (and unlucky) one from a little booth near the main entrance. Being fashionable doesn't matter - some blokes were wearing outfits that even your drunk uncle would be embarrassed to wear to a family wedding, you just have to have a shirt and tie. It could be worse - the first time I turned up at Kranji racecourse in Singapore I made the faux pas of turning up in shorts. Fairly practical I thought considering it was 33C, but no, I had to be clad in trousers yet wearing $1 thongs on my feet was welcomed. An opportunist local vendor tried to sell me a pair of delightful purple velour pants but I thought I'd hop back on the train and try my luck in the local shopping centre - easier
said than done in Asia when you are 6'3" and weigh 17 stone! The extravagant prices at Royal Ascot don't bother most of ra-ra brigade who turn up in their top hats every year - when Daddy owns half of Sussex, who cares about paying £20 for a jug of Pimm's?

If you fancy dressing like a prat and donning the morning suit in the royal enclosure, here is the dress code:

The Royal Enclosure - Dress Code

Ladies are required to dress in a manner appropriate for a formal occasion. This means that: a hat must be worn; strapless dresses are not permitted; midriffs must be covered; and trouser suits, of full length, must be of matching material and colour.

Gentlemen are required to wear either black or grey morning dress, including a waistcoat, with a top hat.

Overseas visitors are welcome to wear the formal national dress of their country or Service Dress.

Please note those not complying with the dress code will be asked to leave the Royal Enclosure.

All you need now is to lobby your local MP and get the Stubbies shorts, blue singlet and thongs officially recognised as the formal national dress of Australia and really wind up the toffs!

The royal meeting is unique in that it is non-commercial - not one race is sponsored over the five days. It is very different and quite refreshing actually to hear a race described as the St James' Palace Stakes without the addition of an airline, brewery or mobile phone company as naming rights sponsor. Each day of the royal meeting has just six races on the card, starting at a very civilised hour of 2.30pm. Quality races are spread throughout the five days with Group 1 events for each age group and distance category. Just a few races over the week don't qualify as black type, they'd probably equate to Open or Class 6 at home.

Contrast this to an Australian feature meeting - nine or even ten races, starting way too early and allowing the partygoers to get well and truly lagered with the inevitable brawl starting on the lawns late in the day. And don't forget if you were a complete desperate, you'd have a menu of interstate and provincial racing every five minutes as well. While other venues race on the same day, the only place you'd be able to get a bet on those meetings at Ascot would be the one or two betting shops on-course, miles away from the betting ring. One thing that the British don't do well is start on time - not caring about other venues means races rarely start on time, with delays for no apparent reason occurring before nearly every race.

Some of the highlights are the big handicap races down the straight mile - up to 30 runners all aimed at the race with campaigns arranged not to outperform their official rating figure from the British Horseracing Board, the basis of all handicaps. In Australia this would be quite tricky as most city class horses tend to run only in town, but English racing is far more decentralised - it takes quite a while to learn how to compare the relative tracks and races and how they link each runner together. These races are classed as Heritage Handicaps - Group status is reserved for set weight/weight-for-age racing. If you thought finding a winner in a race like the Newmarket or Epsom Handicaps were tough, wait until you see these. Spectacular to watch but a field day for bookmakers - often 6/1 or even 10/1 the field, however they do pay out on fourth place so long as there are sixteen runners, and some of the corporates will pay fifth as well.

These handicaps seem to still use the extended weight scale like was once the case in Australia, but the premier Aus handicaps now seem to compress the weights into a relatively narrow band, as if to preserve their Group status when the rest of the world frowns on the idea of big races not being at set weights. So with over 10kg regularly separating top and bottom of the weights, the number of different tips available from the coat-tuggers can often cover more than half the field!

Naturally with such a huge track and such big fields, large screens are a necessity - three down the main straight and one next to the mounting yard. The parade ring as they call it in the UK is below the crowd, terraced all around so that everyone can get a good look at the runners. The one thing that really annoys me though about examining horses in the yard - there is no clerk of the course ordering them all to parade in order, meaning you have to look back to the book constantly. And then of course there's the hundreds of hangers-on who manage to get into the
parade ring with no purpose whatsoever but to be seen and think they're important.

Just an hour away from London by car or train, Royal Ascot is not a true 'away' festival like Cheltenham or even Warrnambool, but it is the big one of the year for flat racing fans in Britain. If you ever make the trip, the Tuesday is a great day to see - after all, it's when the Aussies come to town and more often than not bring home the grand prize.

© Punting Ace