Royal Ascot’s insistence on running half of its eight Group One events on the first two days of the meeting frequently means that the best horses perform for the week’s smallest crowds. An extra 31,000 people would have witnessed Frankel’s greatest performance first-hand if the Queen Anne Stakes in 2012 had been run on Saturday’s card instead of opening the proceedings on Tuesday.
Every now and then, however, it works the other way, and the “wow” factor associated with Bedtime Story’s nine-and-a-half length success in the Chesham Stakes on Saturday – in front of 69,291 spectators, the biggest crowd of the week – was all the more spine-tingling because it pretty much came out of the blue.
Frankel – the sire of Bedtime Story – was already acknowledged as an all-time great when he accelerated 11 lengths clear of his field back in 2012. Bedtime Story, on the other hand, was making only the second start of her career, and while she set off as the 11-8 favourite, even Ryan Moore, her jockey, seemed to be taken by surprise by what happened next.
The straight course at Ascot was the perfect stage. Moore kicked into the lead on Bedtime Story – fully extending her for the first time in her life – at the two-furlong pole, and for the next 20 seconds, racegoers from one end of the track’s immense grandstand to the other enjoyed the exhilarating spectacle of an exceptional racehorse streaking ever further in front of her field, all the way to the line.
Form students may well point out that the Chesham is one of Ascot’s lowlier juvenile events, with only Listed status, and that Age Of Gold, the second-favourite, was a long way short of expectations. But it looked incredible, and at a time when all major sports bar football are struggling to get themselves noticed, that matters far more than the status or prize money attached to the race itself.
Even allowing for the ever-present danger of recency bias, Bedtime Story’s victory was the most compelling and memorable performance of the week, which is some achievement given what had gone before. If there was a palpable air of uncertainty surrounding the meeting on Tuesday morning, what followed was as close to being the perfect week in Royal Berkshire as anyone could have hoped. Dry, sunny weather and fast, summer ground saw a series of performances that would have been worthy candidates for highlight of the week in any other year.
It seems a long time ago now, but Rosallion produced an outstanding turn of foot to run down Henry Longfellow in Tuesday’s St James’s Palace Stakes. Kyprios returned from a life-threatening injury to become only the third horse to win the Gold Cup in non-consecutive years, while Fairy Godmother’s round-the-houses run to victory from a seemingly impossible position in Friday’s Albany Stakes was, in its own way, almost as impressive as Bedtime Story’s victory 24 hours later.
And while Cheltenham in March, Aintree in April and the Derby Festival earlier this month had all suffered significant falls in attendance, the fourth major meeting of the year bucked the trend. The crowd was up on every day of the royal meeting, while the weekly total of 273,526 was a rise of 7,379, or 2.8%, on the 2023 figure of 266,147.
Newcastle: 2.00 Extra Beat (nap), 2.30 Brastias, 3.00 In A Hurry, 3.35 Veydari, 4.10 Elnajmm, 4.40 Tees George, 5.15 Rainyniteingeorgia, 5.50 Titainium.
Nottingham: 2.10 Cherry Cola, 2.40 Enchanted Eye, 3.10 Daylight Chorus, 3.45 Taravara, 4.20 Miss Stormy Night (nb), 4.50 Mrs Trump.
Newmarket: 2.20 Billboard Star, 2.50 Starshine Legend, 3.25 Drama, 4.00 Tareefa, 4.30 Toimy Son, 5.05 Composite, 5.40 Red Force One.
Hamilton: 5.45 Rory The Cat, 6.15 Hardlass, 6.45 Mokaatil, 7.15 Never Dark, 7.45 Wafei, 8.15 Reyaadah Star, 8.45 Captain Dandy.
Leicester: 6.00 Capo Vaticano, 6.30 Ravenglass, 7.00 Alioski, 7.30 Dibble Dabble, 8.00 Super Hit, 8.30 Aspire To Glory, 9.00 Maharajas Express.
Against a backdrop of double-digit falls in the attendance at Cheltenham in recent seasons and an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, it was a hugely encouraging performance at the turnstiles to match the superb action on the track. The task for the track now is to persuade at least some of those spectators to return for other meetings later in the year, and perhaps the King George at the end of next month in particular.
The attendance for Ascot’s midsummer showpiece event has tanked since Covid, but the fact that two of last week’s star performers – Auguste Rodin, the Prince of Wales’s Stakes winner, and Isle Of Jura, who ran away with the Hardwicke Stakes on Saturday – are both likely to be in the big-race field on 27 July will surely be exploited by the track’s marketing department over the next few weeks.
Cartmel: 1.20 Boomslang, 1.55 Starlyte, 2.30 Emily Wade, 3.05 Elleon, 3.40 Dr Sanderson, 4.15 Sleeping Satellite, 4.47 Mermaids Cave.
Doncaster: 1.35 Dandy Dinmont, 2.10 New Century, 2.45 Wichahpi, 3.20 Golden Myrrh, 3.55 Beylerbeyi, 4.30 Miss Gitana, 5.05 Star Start.
Yarmouth: 1.45 Love Your Work, 2.20 Queen Of Good News, 2.55 Warmonger, 3.30 Jenni, 4.05 Berkshire Nugget, 4.40 Tennessee Gold, 5.10 Bluebells Boy.
Newcastle: 4.23 Breguet Boy, 4.55 Nelson Gay (nb), 5.25 Vintage Clarets (nap), 6.00 Chic Colombine, 6.35 Perfectly Timed, 7.10 Bothar, 7.45 Ten Pounds, 8.20 Global Humor.
Bangor-on-Dee: 5.40 Aviewtosea, 6.13 Steppenwolf, 6.48 The Sad Shepherd, 7.23 Kaleb, 7.58 Briefly, 8.30 Bing Belle, 9.00 Home Sweet Highway.
Newmarket
5.15 Nad Alshiba Rain, 5.50 Post Rider, 6.25 Rainbows Edge, 7.00 Royal Tapestry, 7.35 Lou Lou’s Gift, 8.10 Ananda, 8.45 Signalman
Royal Ascot is, of course, only one meeting, and it has several inbuilt advantages over racing’s other showpiece events in terms of its heritage, catchment area and of course the association with royalty that has always set it apart.
There was also a reminder on Sunday of the real and immediate problems facing many top tracks when Qipco, the Qatari-based private investment fund that has sponsored the 1,000 Guineas, 2,000 Guineas and the King George for several years, announced that it is ending its support after this year’s races, although it will continue to back Champions Day at Ascot in October.
For racing as a whole, the future still looks uncertain, to say the least, but a lacklustre week and disappointing crowds at the royal meeting could have sent us into a tailspin. As it is, a future that includes horses like Bedtime Story, Fairy Godmother, Rosallion and the rest suddenly feels noticeably brighter.
