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Rumour has it that there’s a ‘day five’ today
Could this meeting get much more boring?
A meeting that starts in a blaze of glory and with so much excitement, once again fizzles out as the week goes on, renderring Saturday’s day five meeting just another day’s racing.
Unlike Cheltenham for example, where you know that the Gold Cup is staged on the final day, and you know who will be on show in terms of equine talent, and the excitement is huge, Royal Ascot is the complete opposite for me. I know the Wokingham is run today, but that’s it.
For the umpteenth year running I won’t be watching Royal Ascot on a Saturday. Today’s reason is my children are taking me out for an early Father’s Day lunch, but that apart, I’m sure I would have found something alternative to do just as I have in previous years (go to a football match or have a kick-about, work, etc).
I was extremely excited on Tuesday – couldn’t wait to see Frankel – but as Royal Ascot does every year it gets worse as the week goes on, the crowds are dull as hell, the standard of racing gets more poor, the excitement wears off. I probably won’t even check the results later, that’s how disinterested I am; and I absolutely love horse racing.
Would much rather see a three-day meeting (Tuesday to Thursday) with seven or eight races a day. Get rid of some of the lesser light races; I mean, do we really need five or six two-year-old races or how ever many there is?
Unless you’re an owner with a horse running today, I doubt many of you could – hand on your heart – say with 100% honesty, that you’re just as excited this morning as you were on Tuesday morning.
- Total Posts 17716
Dr Johnson once wrote that if you’re tired of London, you’re tired of Life.
I’d extend that,
OneEye
, and suggest that if you’re tired of Royal Ascot, you’re tired of Racing.
A meeting which has featured
Canford Cliffs v. Goldikova
,
Frankel
, the pulsating
So You Think / Rewilding
battle,
Fame and Glory
‘s
Gold Cup
, plus a host of close finishes between good horses can hardly be described as
"boring"
, unless by
"boring"
you mean
"absorbing"
,
"rich"
and
"thrilling"
– which I don’t think you do.
Today we’ve got
Await the Dawn
in the
Hardwicke
, a great international field for the
Golden Jubilee
, and plenty else. Enjoy it!
Boring? You have to be joking.
The difference between Royal Ascot and Cheltenham is Ascot has enough top quality races to justify a five day festival. All of the races are established and they work.
Cheltenham was better over three days because the quality has been diluted since the four day festival came into being with too many either non championship races or races that have been formed which take away from the quality of other races.
Dr Johnson once wrote that if you’re tired of London, you’re tired of Life.
I’d extend that,
OneEye
, and suggest that if you’re tired of Royal Ascot, you’re tired of Racing.
A meeting which has featured
Canford Cliffs v. Goldikova
,
Frankel
, the pulsating
So You Think / Rewilding
battle,
Fame and Glory
‘s
Gold Cup
, plus a host of close finishes between good horses can hardly be described as
"boring"
, unless by
"boring"
you mean
"absorbing"
,
"rich"
and
"thrilling"
– which I don’t think you do.
And haven’t all those races already taken place?
– and I wasn’t saying it HAS BEEN boring, I was suggesting that it gets more boring as the week goes on, day five, today, for example.I’m tired of Royal Ascot (for this year), but I’m certainly not tired of racing. I can’t wait for Royal Windsor on Monday evening, it will be my first ever visit there.
Perhaps I was a bit harsh in my original post. What I really mean is that for me the excitement wears off come Saturday, and with two children approaching teenage age, I’d much rather go to the cinema with them, have lunch somewhere, go to an event or something.
But if I was just as excited about Royal Ascot today as I was on Tuesday, I’d tell the kids to get lost
That’s not the case though. I’m not expecting many of you to admit that it’s the same for you however.
Every second of the racing action at Royal Ascot is pure joy for me.
Each to their own I guess but the quality throuhout the 5 days is staggeringly outstanding imho.
One Eye if a child had five Christmas days in a row the excitement would wear off a little bit more with each one. Its impossible to be as excited on day five as it is on day one simply because the anticipation has gone. Thats not the same as boring.
For the umpteenth year running I won’t be watching Royal Ascot on a Saturday.
Would much rather see a three-day meeting (Tuesday to Thursday) with seven or eight races a day. Get rid of some of the lesser light races; I mean, do we really need five or six two-year-old races or how ever many there is?
Don’t know how long you’ve been following racing OneEye but prior to 2002 the Royal Meeting was the four weekdays with the Saturday known as the Heath Meeting. This card featured flat caps and trainers rather than top hats and brogues, a lone Listed event and three moderately fearsome 0-100ish handicaps
Like the extension of Cheltenham to four days, the Royal extension to five days has seen a dilution of quality, not through the loss of the existing Pattern Races but by the addition of wholly unnecessary subordinate events
However, for the poor-bloody-infantry on the 40-hour-nine-while-five today must surely be regarded as a splendid afternoon’s racing; and it is, if one compares it to other Saturdays rather than the four-day feast we gentlemen of leisure have gorged ourselves on to the point of queasy satiation
Anyway, enjoy the privilege of watching of weekday Group 1 races while you can. Rod will no doubt be planning to move them all to Saturday and instigating a Royal Ascot Champions Super Saturday
I think if the primary races from the meeting would’ve been reversed (wokingham/Golden Jubilee on Tuesday up to the Queen Anne/St James Palace on Saturday) then the anticipation of what to come would build up to a greater crescendo of excitement. So ‘anti-climax’ might spring to mind for some. I can see where Oneeye is coming from.
Are you sure you’re not "bored" because you’ve had a poor week betting-wise One Eye? It’s certainly not the same if I’ve had a bad week, though still enjoy it.
Do agree, the Saturday could be a better day. May be move either the Queen Anne or St James’s Palace… But you’ve still got one of the best quality sprints all year, the best sprint handicap, and a 1 1/2 mile Group 2 featuring a horse who’s well up to Group 1 class.
On Tuesday you have the anticipation of not only Tuesday’s racing, but all five days of Royal Ascot. So there is bound to be a slight lowering of heart rate.
Personally, I don’t know how you can get excited about an evening micro-meal at Windsor, after this feast of equine cuisene.
Value Is EverythingI think he has a point. Maybe swap the Hardwicke with the Gold Cup?
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
Speaking of that dreaded demon Rodders , the Beeb gave him some airtime yesterday , where I expect he prattled on about the champion day robbery and disaster that will end the tradition of racing
I switched him off
Expect more Saturdays and dilution of the weekday pattern , these guys are ruling the roost, yes Paul Roy is still in office along with a whole heap of dead wood…NO CHANGE expected anytime soon
The Tuesday of Royal Ascot , normally one of the best days racing in the entire year , will soon be shuffled into Thursday and loaded with Handicaps to satisfy the bookies on whom RFC totally depend
bullocks to them I say
Ricky
I got bored with it after Fame Or Glory’s race, I did have a decent bet on it, most of the races are impossible to work out.
The Social Club that I belong to used to run a coach trip to the Heath meeting for years, but when the Saturday was included in the Royal meeting the price went from something like £30 a head to £55, out of most people’s reach, would be nearer the £100 today I suspect. Guess what, we’ve never been since & in fact very few people that I know have been to Ascot for any meeting since, and the ones that have been, were not impressed with the new layout, stand etc.
I understand that some of the issues of viewing have been resolved, but I still don’t think I will bother to take the trip down there unless I get a freebie!I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysThe Queen Anne, St James’s Palace and Prince of Wales’s happened to have a small collection of very good, short-priced and/or hyped horses running in them; hence they were of particular interest to the racing public. In another year they may very well be ‘just other’ Group 1s with no particular stellar runner. To suggest buggering about (again) with the meeting’s schedule on the basis of the calibre of one year’s races is ludicrous
However, I’ll play the game by suggesting it would make some sense to make Ladies’ Day (Thursday) genuinely feminine by switching Gold Cup with Coronation and Norfolk with Queen Mary
Though, in truth, let’s just leave well alone shall we? As Ricky Lake intimates above, the days just gone are very very special and should be treasured for what they are and as they are: Flat Racing at its very best
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All of which is spot on. I’d add that shoving the best races to the end of the week would always increase the risk that they’d be run on bad or poached ground (as would indeed have happened this week, with the increasing number of withdrawals due to rain-softened going.)
The Queen Anne, St James’s Palace and Prince of Wales’s happened to have a small collection of very good, short-priced and/or hyped horses running in them; hence they were of particular interest to the racing public. In another year they may very well be ‘just other’ Group 1s with no particular stellar runner. To suggest buggering about (again) with the meeting’s schedule on the basis of the calibre of one year’s races is ludicrous
Don’t think it is a matter of looking at one individual year Drone.
Tuesday has three Group 1’s to start the meeting. That is all very well, but moving one of the mile races enhances Saturday. The day most people can watch racing. Nothing to do with Racing For Change, agree, they are bxxxxxing up the calendar. We should not be opposed to a small change just because Racing For Change is sxxt. Can’t move the King’s Stand. We want the two big sprints well apart to encourage connections to run twice in one week.
Value Is EverythingThe anomaly – if anomaly it is – of starting the meeting with three Group 1 races is a result, I think, of both the Queen Anne and King’s Stand being promoted to G1 since the meeting’s schedule was re-jigged following its extension to five days in 2002
The King’s Stand is something of an oddity in that it was given G1 status when the Pattern was introduced, then downgraded sometime in the ’80s I think, before being upgraded again
The Prince of Wales’s too used to be G2, though if memory serves that was upgraded in the ’90s
Before the Saturday was introduced the four days featured a lone G1 on each day: St James’s Palace, Coronation, Gold Cup, King’s Stand; though the downgrading of the latter meant Friday didn’t have a G1 for several years
It probably goes without saying, but the shape of each day’s card and that of the whole meeting when the time-honoured four days, was altogether more satisfying and tidy than it is now
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