Talking Horses: uplifting Royal Ascot points to a bright future for racing | Horse racing

There were also glimpses last week of how Royal Ascot might look and feel a fair bit further into the future. In 2031, perhaps, in a post-Frankie Dettori era in which a 35-year-old Oisin Murphy remains the man to beat in the race to be the top rider at the meeting, a decade on from his debut success.

Murphy’s was only the fourth different name on the top-jockey prize since 2007, and he was the first rider to enjoy a debut success since Ryan Moore 2010. His five winners underlined a definite sense at Ascot all week that a younger generation is slowly but firmly starting to push past its elders, as no fewer than eight jockeys registered a first success at the Royal meeting.

In the case of riders such as Cieren Fallon and Marco Ghiani – the current leader in this year’s apprentice championship – it is highly likely that their wins on Oxted (King’s Stand Stakes) and Real World (Royal Hunt Cup) will be the first of many, while in the training ranks too there were several breakthrough moments.

Behind John and Thady Gosden, the first partnership to win the top trainer prize, David Menuisier, Johnny Murtagh and David Loughnane were among the trainers who saddled their first Royal winner. They admittedly have a long way to go to catch Sir Michael Stoute, however, as the 75-year-old all-time record holder for winners at the meeting sent out his 82nd, as Dream Of Dreams finally landed the Diamond Jubilee, while Aidan O’Brien, who had an unusually low return of just two winners, moved to 76.

One of O’Brien’s winners, though, was Love, whose successful return to action in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes was one of the highlights of the week and put her firmly on course for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in October. A likely opponent there is Menuisier’s Wonderful Tonight, whose win against male horses in the Hardwicke Stakes on Saturday was the “breakthrough” moment of the meeting and the latest sign that her trainer is very much on the rise.

This was also a Royal meeting, of course, where the Queen herself was largely absent, making her only trip to the course – her first since 2019 – on Saturday.

It is impossible to even start to calculate the benefit, in terms of its standing and public profile, that the sport has enjoyed over nearly seven decades thanks to her lifelong passion for racing and breeding. And even the staunchest republican would probably concede that it did not feel quite the same without her on the first four days last week.

But all the other familiar formalities and traditions, from the races themselves and the outfits to the post-race sing-song at the bandstand, meant it still felt like a uniquely historic and grand sporting occasion.

It still felt like Royal Ascot, in other words, and if, as seems inevitable, future generations of the House of Windsor do not share the current monarch’s fervent interest in the turf, there will surely still be more than enough about this remarkable event to guarantee its continued success and popularity.

Five-day Festival looks a non-runner for now

Jockey Club Racecourses, the owner of Cheltenham, has played down a suggestion that it is giving serious consideration to adding a fifth day to its Festival meeting from 2023.

A report on Monday morning claimed that the 2023 renewal could be a five-day event, running from Tuesday to Saturday with six races each day and with the Gold Cup remaining in its current slot on Friday.

However, while sticking to an official line that JCR “will always explore every option to improve the Festival and support British racing”, off-the-record comments on Monday afternoon suggest that a fifth day at the Festival is no more likely now than it was this time last week.

In essence, JCR has yet to be convinced that the financial case for a fifth day is anywhere near as compelling as it was for Royal Ascot nearly 20 years ago. Corporate hospitality business, for instance, drops significantly at weekends, and while Ascot can offset by attracting a 75,000 sell-out for its final day, it is less than an hour from London by train. A Saturday fixture could also face competition from Premier League football and the Six Nations’ Rugby championship for both its live and TV audience.