Ascot will mark the 200th anniversary of the first Royal procession at its showpiece race meeting next week. The intermittent noise of jets on the final approach to Heathrow will be one of the few deviations from the sights and sounds when George IV first trundled his way up the course in 1825. The king and queen will ride in the first of the horse-drawn carriages, their liveried attendants will be upright in the saddle and, as they pass the Royal enclosure, the gentlemen’s top hats will be doffed in the familiar mark of respect.
There is little else, in sport or the wider world beyond, that remains just as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. Demand for the Royal Ascot experience also remains strong. After a post-Covid surge, attendances are in decline at both the Derby and Cheltenham’s festival meeting in March. At Royal Ascot 2024, though, the year-on-year crowd numbers were up.
