Talking Horses: should Dettori worry after mixed fortunes at Royal Ascot?

The Queen did not attend Royal Ascot last week, for the first time since her coronation 70 years ago, but 273,465 spectators did and though they had to make do without the track’s owner leading the daily procession, most will have headed home with overwhelmingly positive memories of the first Royal meeting with a proper crowd since 2019.

The weather played a blinder, of course, with only the final hour or so on Saturday seeing any need for spectators to retreat from the lawns and take shelter in the stand. The track was also immaculate, with safe, watered good-to-firm ground providing an ideal surface for top-class racehorses to strut their stuff, and the post-Covid, seven races-a-day format helped to ensure that every afternoon had at least one moment to keep racegoers coming back for more.

Baaeed and Nature Strip were both imperious on the opening afternoon, Inspiral took the breath away in Friday’s Coronation Stakes while Ryan Moore’s ice-cool slice through the field on Rohaan in the final furlong of Saturday’s Wokingham set the seal on a flawless week, as he claimed hisn inth riders’ crown at the meeting.

William Buick is still waiting for his first Royal Ascot title, as is his main employer, Charlie Appleby, who was one winner adrift of Aidan O’Brien in the trainers’ contest, but both will be well satisfied with their weeks’ work, finishing with five and four wins respectively. Danny Tudhope, with four victories, matching his total in 2019, also had an excellent meeting, while Shane Crosse, Shane Foley, Sean Levey and Callum Hutchinson all gott heir first Royal winner on the board.

Frankie Dettori, on the other hand, had a curate’s egg of a meeting, with a single – and spectacular – success on Inspiral and several