Royals, hats and tails still de rigueur but this year’s Ascot will feel different

E ven in the final years of her reign, when first the Covid epidemic and then failing health prevented Queen Elizabeth II from attending Royal Ascot in person, the late monarch was still a presence at her favourite course during the biggest week of its year. “Even though she wasn’t here last year, she was still at Windsor Castle and watching the whole affair,” Nick Smith, Ascot’s director of racing and public affairs, said this past week. “She did still feel very much part of the event.”

The Royal meeting was often said to be the first – and most sacrosanct – engagement in the former Queen’s private diary each year, and she did not miss a single day at Royal Ascot during her long reign until Covid sent the meeting behind closed doors in 2020.

Even in 2017, when Theresa May rather thoughtlessly engineered a clash between the state opening of parliament and the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, commandeering the horses for the royal procession in the process, Queen Elizabeth II rattled through her speech like an auctioneer with a plane to catch and still got to Ascot in plenty of time for the opener.

So the first Royal meeting since her death last September, which opens on Tuesday with a card that includes three Group One events, will look much the same on the surface. It always does, which is a big part of its appeal. But it will also, inevitably, feel a little different, too.

Smith, who is bound by protocol and security considerations, can say only that there will be a “significant” royal presence throughout the five days, including in the royal procession before racing, which also took place without the queen last year. How many days will have either King Charles, Queen Camilla, or both, in attendance remains to be seen.

Ther