Royal Ascot
A recurrent theme of the Rust Is ‘Fings ain’t what they used to be’ – not even nostalgia is as good. There is no doubt that memory can play tricks but not in the case of Royal Ascot an event I attended with my late parents for some 30 years but now have little wish to do so again.
My father had a patient and friend Henry who made his fortune in laundrettes. Henry acquired a horse called Tubalcain who won twice at Ascot. My parents accompanied the family and became members of the Royal Enclosure. I guess this would be the mid sixties. My father used to quote Henry as after the second win he was called by his local Rabbi to ask if given the win he might donate to the synagogue.
He replied “Will you pay its feed if it loses?“
For years when I went with my parents, I felt I had socially arrived. I went to the Royal Enclosure on Ladies Day. After a few years I began to assess the day and realised I hardly enjoyed myself at all. We set off late as my father wanted to do his morning surgery. We usual ended in a traffic jam of one hour before entering our car park. My mother, a noted cook, would prepare a delicious salmon which heartened us.
Even better when we walked through number one car park was to see the blue Rolls Royce of an exotic friend of theirs, a night club owner and man of various business interests where the great and the good and above all freeloaders congregated. Campbell never watched a race, he set up shop at the Mill Reef bar. We met there another exotic character who had delusions of grandeur and was a man of the turf, always exquisitely dressed but never as far as I knew worked a day in his life. Once he gave us a tip from the Royal Household which romped home at 10-1. I always lost and always came home exhausted and reflected on a deeper level that those who were already there socially did not bother with Ascot, it was for us arrivistes.
Yesterday afternoon having nothing else to do I watched the ITV coverage.
Apart from anything else I thought I could participate in the Great Rust Debate.
I switched on to a rather unctuous commentary as the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh arrived in their landau. For a couple now in their nineties they looked good. We then had a fashion piece from a clothes horse called Francesca, including a trip to a dress shop to fit her out, which must have been worth its weight in gold in terms of publicity. The owner consulted the dress regulations, which were precise – no strapless, off the shoulder or spaghetti strap dresses – as they dressed the woman and the fashion expert cooed. I was happy to be on my sofa not least as at 30* I would not like to be in a morning suit. The ITV team looked rather daft in toppers and tails. We were now into the business of the day: the racing.
After failing in the the early races I duly texted John Pargiter who advised when you’re down, lay the favourite. Much as it hurts me to back against a horse called Churchil but I did so successfully and I did as gamblers say “just about break even” on the day. I then abandoned the racing, content that I did not have a 2 hour journey back to my home.
Royal Ascot, for all its flummery and snobbery is one of those very British anachronisms, a bastion of formal amd regulated dress when style icons are in jeans with holes that will probably survive even after the Queen who has been to every one since 1952.
I have been to horse racing at Deauville, Chantilly and Auteuil and much preferred it.
I understand that the Rust have recruited a dedicated horse racing correspondent so he is the better judge on the quality of the horses and races.
