'In racing terms it was the Queen's annus mirabilis, the climax of a golden era'

In the first six years of her reign the Queen was champion owner twice, albeit narrowly both times, and therefore surpassed her great-grandfather King Edward VII and her father King George VI, who were both champion once.

She owed her first title, in 1954, mainly to Aureole’s victory in the race named after her parents, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

Aureole had been a top-class three-year-old, coming second to Pinza in the Derby and King George, and in 1954 he became a champion, the top older horse in Europe and the best colt the Queen ever owned.

He took the Coronation Cup (by five lengths), the Hardwicke Stakes and, in a memorable climax to his career, the King George. He led early in the Ascot straight and repelled a strong challenge from the French raider Vamos by three-quarters of a length.

He was ridden that season by Eph Smith because the highly strung son of Hyperion seemed to go better for him than for stable jockey Harry Carr.

At the time the Queen’s homebreds, like Aureole, were trained by Cecil Boyd-Rochfort, and the horses she leased from the National Stud, notably Landau, were trained by another Newmarket-based multiple champion, Noel Murless.

Landau won the one-mile Rous Memorial Stakes on the same card as Aureole’s Hardwicke and was third in the Eclipse, in which he was the last mount in public for Sir Gordon Richards.

The son of Sun Chariot then led all the way in the Sussex Stakes for a five-length victory, but he was unreliable and disappointed too many times, including in the 2,000 Guineas and Derby and when sent to America for the Washington DC International.

Aureole’s sister Angel Bright (Lingfield Oaks Trial) and Alexander (Duke of Edinburgh Stakes) made lesser but crucial contributions to the owner’s championship-winning prize-money. In addition, Corporal took the Newmarket Foal Stakes, inflicting on stablemate Meld the only defeat of her career.

Robert Sterling Clark, the anglophile American who won the Derby and St Leger with Never Say Die, retired his colt after Doncaster in order to clear the Queen’s path to the championship; her eventual margin over him was only £1,260. The top five owners were completed by Lionel Holliday, Sir Percy Loraine and Lord Rosebery.

In those days prize-money statistics were based on win-money only, and ten individual horses won the 19 races that contributed to the royal championship-winning tally of £40,993.

Nearly three-quarters of that was won by Aureole in his four victories. His King George prize of £23,302 made it easily the most valuable race of the season.

In the Queen’s second championship year, 1957, a dozen of her 30 victories came in races of Pattern class via top staying filly Almeria, Oaks winner Carrozza, Doutelle, Agreement, Mulberry Harbour and Pall Mall.

Carrozza, out of a sister to Sun Chariot and trained by Murless, won the Princess Elizabeth Stakes at Epsom but was the Queen’s second-string in the Oaks because Cheshire Oaks winner Mulberry Harbour carried her first colours.

Wearing a distinguishing white cap, Lester Piggott sent Carrozza to the front over two furlongs out and produced one of his strongest finishes to repel Jimmy Eddery (Pat’s father) on Silken Glider by a short head.

Yet it was homebred Almeria who proved the best of the royal horses that season. Slow to mature, she won the Ribblesdale Stakes by five lengths, the Yorkshire Oaks by six and the Park Hill Stakes by two, with Silken Glider behind her at York and Doncaster.

Doutelle won four of his five races that year including the Kempton 2,000 Guineas Trial, Lingfield Derby Trial and Cumberland Lodge Stakes, while Agreement, a future dual Doncaster Cup victor, won the Newmarket St Leger.

As in 1954, the Queen enjoyed a Royal Ascot double, with Almeria’s Ribblesdale supplemented by the victory of subsequent 2,000 Guineas hero Pall Mall in the New (now Norfolk) Stakes.

She secured her second championship by a margin of only £3,689 from Sir Victor Sassoon, a Bahamas-based tycoon whose great champion Crepello (a stablemate of Carrozza) won the 2,000 Guineas and Derby but then broke down. Next in the owners’ table came Lionel Holliday, Jim Joel and Phil Bull.

Sixteen individual horses won the 30 prizes that made up the royal championship-winning haul of £62,211, to which the biggest contributors were Carrozza and Almeria.

In racing terms 1957 was the Queen’s annus mirabilis, the climax of a golden era for the royal horses. A change of policy at the National Stud, unique budgetary and political constraints, and stiff competition from Arab owner-breeders prevented her from being a championship contender again.