The Gold Cup is a timeless spectacle that stands above the fads of fashion

Diggers, strimmers and chainsaws were not easily available back in the first decade of the 1700s. So when Queen Anne decided Ascot Heath should be cleared after she spotted it was an ideal place to race horses it must have been a task somewhere between monumental and “you’re having a laugh ma’am”.

Think billhooks, brawn, bleeding knuckles and bloody hard graft. The labour of the many for the delectation of the few.

A myth hangs on that Royal Ascot is simply about oversized, over-decorated hats, morning suits and cut-glass accents – real or affected.

It is so much more than that. During the week there will be 300,000 racegoers but denizens of the Royal Enclosure will be outnumbered five to one.

Win a luxury day for two at Ascot in High Commissioner's competition

High Commissioner whisky is offering Racing Post readers the chance to win a luxury day for two at Ascot on Saturday, July 28, when the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, won last year in thrilling style by Enable and Frankie Dettori, takes centre stage.

The prize includes a table for the day in the superbly positioned Trackside Restaurant, Winning Post Enclosure badges, a four-course lunch, afternoon tea and complimentary bar throughout the day.

Simply click here and answer the following three questions correctly.

a) Who owned the first dual winner of the Gold Cup?

b) Who originally crafted High Commissioner whisky?

c) How many times did Lester Piggott win the Gold Cup?

All correct entries will be placed in a draw. The first correct set of answers drawn wins the luxury day at Ascot, with six runners-up each receiving a pair of tickets to the Queen Anne enclosure for the same day.

Entries can be submitted from 00.01am on June 21 and close at 23.59pm on June 27. One entry per person and entrants must be over 18. Full terms and conditions can be viewed here.

It is very much more the peoples’ meeting than some in the lazy media would have you believe.

If you drive a cab in Bury St Edmunds or labour as a barista in Bristol, dressing up for a massive day out is every bit as much of an event as it may be when some hedge fund manager siphons a few grand out of his overflowing account for his wife to wear a different designer dress each afternoon.

For five days in June Royal Ascot stages the finest horseracing in the world. A distillation of high-quality thoroughbred sport par excellence.

And at the heart of the week lies a race that is a wonderful, mildly bonkers, imperishable anachronism: the Gold Cup. Please note, it is not the Ascot Gold Cup, just the Gold Cup.

The simplicity of the title is a clue to its unarguable pre-eminence.

The Gold Cup – 1807-2018

1807 - The Gold Cup, worth an astonishing 100 guineas, is inaugurated by Queen Charlotte in the same year as her husband King George III descends into madness

1837 - Touchstone, owned by the 1st Marquess of Westminster, becomes the first dual winner

1844 - The anonymous winner is given name The Emperor in honour of visiting Nicholas I of Russia. In return, Nicholas donates a trophy, the Emperor's Plate, and this becomes the race title for nine years until the Crimean War

1866 - France's Gladiateur, 'The Avenger of Waterloo' after winning the Triple Crown, adds the Gold Cup to his British conquests by 40 lengths

1897 - Persimmon is a hugely popular winner for the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII

1972 - The luckless Rock Roi, trained by Peter Walwyn, is disqualified from first place for the second year running - once for failing a drugs test, once for interference

1977 - Sagaro becomes the first horse to win the race three times, helping Lester Piggott to a record 11 Gold Cups

1980 - Le Moss and Ardross provide four consecutive victories for Sir Henry Cecil

2009 - There has never been a Gold Cup performer to touch Yeats, who wins for the fourth time

2013 - Estimate becomes the first winner owned by a reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II

2016 - Order Of St George gives trainer Aidan O'Brien a record seventh victory

So what makes it so different? So special?

Most of all it is because it is run over two and a half miles, which is a rare and extreme distance for Flat racing. Thus it is a savage test of stamina and resolve.

Yes, all racing fans thrill to the blinding turn of foot and the flash of class, moments when a racehorse takes the breath with a burst of brilliance.

But, curious to relate, we value endurance and courage in the racehorse above all other virtues. A speed merchant zipping up Ascot’s five-furlong track is a breathtaking spectacle but something about a true stayer at the end of a Gold Cup, digging deep into places we will never understand, captures the heart in an entirely different fashion.

Here lies indomitability, the sheer will to win and the capacity to answer every call far beyond any horse’s line of duty.

The Gold Cup was first run in 1807, some 211 years ago. But its appeal has nothing to do with the antiquity of its inauguration.

Indeed it is but a spotty teenager in comparison with our oldest Classic the St Leger, born in 1776, or that most influential benchmark of them all, the Derby, which first saw the light of day in 1787.

But at Ascot on the Thursday of the royal meeting the Gold Cup weaves its eternal magic.

Estimate and Ryan Moore win the 2013 Gold Cup for the QueenCredit: Edward Whitaker

In 2013 Her Majesty’s Estimate won the great race – the first Gold Cup winner owned by a reigning monarch in the small matter of 207 years.

Those blessed to be present will not forget the moment. The Queen is not allowed to do joy unconfined and her history of high fives is necessarily not a lengthy one, but by goodness she almost shot into the ether that day, accompanied by hordes in the happy stands. Estimate was indeed warmly welcomed into the winner’s enclosure but it was as nothing compared to the reception the Queen received as she beamed delightedly at this milestone in her racing life.

And it was not the cheers of nobs and nabobs that rendered the moment so memorable. It was the roars of approval and sheer excitement from the racing public – the Normas and Normans of our world.

There is a trite and easy line much used by the unknowing that the Queen is a ‘racing enthusiast’. Talk about failing to get the point.

No other individual in these islands has been breeding and racing horses for as long as she. Folk talk about her knowledge being encyclopaedic, but it is more than that; she could foal horses, break them, nurture them, spot their problems and give advice to anybody. Her advantage being that when she gives advice there would not be a huge amount of choice about accepting it.

And what we saw on Estimate’s day of glory was something the crowd immediately grasped. It was almost a kind of payback to her for those many decades of duty when having to smile and look interested as she entertains sundry dullards, dictators and the dross of international diplomacy.

It was her moment. Private in a sense but very public. Fun for all but most especially for the host of the feast that is Royal Ascot.

We live in an age when speed up to a mile and a quarter is everything when it comes to the commercial value of the racehorse. You can put your own valuation on the miracle that was Frankel but if you go south of £70m then you have issues with denial.

Yet the Gold Cup, like some brilliant but unruly schoolboy, has barged its way back into our favour and affection.

Twenty years ago the modernisers wanted to reduce the length of the race from two and a half miles to just two. There may not have been rioting in the streets, but those who understood that the value of history meant more than the fads of fashion resisted the move with stern determination.

Johnny Murtagh celebrates on board Yeats, mighty winner of four Gold CupsCredit: Edward Whitaker

But in fact the race has saved itself from emasculation with a harvest of rafter-shaking results in recent years. It is not always won by a superstar, but in the Ascot paddock stands a statue of Yeats, lord of all he surveys as he has every right, having won his fourth Gold Cup at the ripening age of eight in 2009.

The Ascot crowd is rarely moved to wholesale celebration but Yeats burst that bubble of reserve. Many a horse has won two or three Gold Cups – it is a specialist gig after all – but none had ever won four in a row. This plush corner of Berkshire united in acclamation and admiration.

‘Hats off for the Queen’ is a famous racing adage. This was hats off for the quintessence of the pure class stayer.

For all the social flummery it is the horses who lie at the centre of Royal Ascot week. The thoroughbred predates the meeting by a handful of years but every single racehorse can have its lineage traced through the stud book to three Arabian stallions – the Darley Arabian, Godolphin Arabian and Byerley Turk – who came to Britain between the 1680s and 1720s.

Princes and potentates may come and go but for genuine pedigree look no further than the unique breed that will bring us the sport at its most beautifully distilled during Ascot week.

And while the horse has been the constant, the meeting has moved on and up. Thirty years ago every gate and entrance was monitored by fearsome folk in green velvet tails past whom you could not have smuggled the Prince of Wales if he had a shoelace undone.

Now it is all about smiles and a welcome.

Yes there is formality, but also fellowship. At the end of each day a huge crowd comprised of many a creed and crime forms around the bandstand to sing songs not heard at any other sporting occasion all year.

If you have not yet managed to join in then make it your mission to get yourself there for this celebration of Ascot ancient and modern.