Royal Ascot delivered again

Frankie Dettori on Stradivarius. The jockey rode seven winners and took the leading jockey award

ANY REGULAR READERS will be aware that this column is an almost fanatical supporter of Royal Ascot. Each July reports of events that take place in June at the course Queen Anne laid down more than 300 years ago come freshly garlanded with flowers, most of the compliments to be found in reputable dictionaries, and reckless assertions that this is the best race meeting in the world – and don’t bother arguing.

This has nothing to do with passion for monarchy, a delight in watching the Tory party at play, or an abnormal interest in hats. It has everything to do with the horses, their riders and the people who prepare them to perform and then go noisily berserk when they meet or surpass expectations.

If you’re not sure if you’ve ever seen unadulterated joy treat yourself to the reactions of the little, but big guys behind the Ascot winners. Not the big shots who own them or the generals who run the stables, or even Frankie Dettori whose jubilation is just expected of him these days and therefore looks very slightly rehearsed, not least because he’s been rehearsing it ever since that amazing day in 1996 when he rode every winner on an Ascot card.

The men and women who deliver the oats, stroke the muzzles and shovel the shite of course look very happy indeed whenever they have a winner anywhere.

But only Ascot, and specifically the Royal meeting, delivers ecstasy. It does so because however good the horse they dote on may be, and however much they hope, they never quite dare to expect it, and when it comes, the relief mixed with love and, let’s not forget, the possibly life-changing financial reward produces a chemical explosion.

They can’t all feel so excited by a Royal Ascot winner, can they? Yes, they can. And they do. And they grab the nearest human they know – usually someone they work with – and dance around like wild things shouting and sobbing and hugging each other in a way that multi-billionaire owners can only look at with benign perplexity because they’ve either forgotten or never known what it feels like.

To be fair to John Gosden, and more than a few of the other modern training greats, there is a tendency now to push the groom forward, to make him or her take credit for what he or she has made possible: credit that was denied in the olden days when grooms or ‘lads’ as they were then called, regardless of age, were expected to stand as rigid and subservient as butlers, poker-faced, silent and respectful.

That’s gone now. And TV has caught on to it (realised that pictures of people beside themselves attract viewers and therefore advertising – if you’re feeling cynical) and does its best to allow those of us goggling from a couple of 100 miles away or so to get a slice of the happy hysteria and a bit of vicarious bliss.

Well, only if you’ve backed a winner or two of course. Ascot can be a giant torture chamber if you’ve done your dough in the first couple of days and then tried to get it back on one of the short shots that get beaten, or one of the never-sighteds in 33-runner handicaps. You have to learn not to do that.

You can learn a lot from watching on TV these days. You can find a bit to think about too, apart from the form.

Long, long ago, about the time the Aboriginals ruled Australia, my mother who’d brought the whole family on what turned out to be a relatively short immigration, confided that she needed a new fridge and washing machine and didn’t know how to get it.

I’d just discovered my first racing hero. A big nearblack beauty called Nicopolis. He’d won everything in WA and then went to Victoria to prove he was the best horse in the world.

“Don’t worry Mum,” I said. “Get 20 quid together (Australia had quids too in those days), we’ll stick it all on Nicopolis and he’ll pay for both.”

Nico had won his first two races in Melbourne and thus I thought he was invincible. What I didn’t consider was that he was now up against some of the best horses in Australia.

He started 9/4 favourite and he finished sixth. He was by Landau, who I’m pretty sure was one of the Queen’s, out of a mare called Ballater Belle. Funny how you forgive horses. He’s a hero even now.

Enough reminiscing. Time to talk about the horses. The three that stand out for me are Blue Point (of course), Stradivarius (of course) and – here’s the surprise, Watch Me. The way Watch Me went past Hermosa was a joy to behold if you weren’t from Ballydoyle and had taken the 41/1 on Betfair.

And time to talk about the jockeys too. Or to put it another way, Frankie Dettori.

A couple of years ago I was hired to write an autobiography for Kieren Fallon. It was ill-fated as I wanted to write it in a way that told the reader what a remarkable man he is. That’s to say he’s a dyslexic with hardly any education who succeeded because he had a brilliant mind and was quite fearless.

His advisors wanted the book written in the standard way, which is to make him sound like an erudite fellow with a couple of awards for journalism. So did the publisher. They won. I was shown the door in favour of some bloke from the Mail.

But not before Kieren had told me how to ride a horse. At least in all races longer than 7f.

“You’ve got to jump fast, then ride, ride, ride until you’ve got your pitch. Then you’ve got to put him to sleep. Sleep. Sleep, sleep. Feel the pace. Then when you’re in the straight and you can feel how the others are going, even the ones behind you – don’t ask me how – you go for it, go for it. And then you win.”

Frankie did that in the first four races on Gold Cup day. Then he blew the five-timer “by getting excited and going too early” on Turgenev. His words.

Watch Me breezing past Hermosa in the Coronation Stakes

That mistake saved the bookies millions and cost me about a fridge and a washing machine’s worth too.

Does anyone go for all five days? Anyone except the Queen that is? Surely it would be too exhausting, maybe some of the young guys might be able to do it, even though there seems to be an unspoken convention that they’re letting all sides down if they go home even marginally sober.

You worry about them though. The 1000s clustered round the bandstand singing Land Of Hope and Glory as though they actually believe it, and really going to town on the bit that goes “God who made thee mighty, make thee mi-igthier yet!”.

It’s not going to happen, boys. We’ve got the same chance as the Aztecs, or the

Mongols, or the Assyrians. Empires are that way. You can’t see it even from the top of the grandstand. Brexit’s not going to bring it back.