The sport of kings and queens: the history of the royals and racing

It is difficult to overstate the significance of the Queen’s immense contribution to racing through her long reign. Her breeding operation and the horses who ran in her colours, as well as her obvious interest and delight in attending meetings, was of incalculable benefit to the sport.

She was maintaining a family tradition as many of her predecessors were heavily involved in racing.

The first race meetings took place during the reign of Henry II (1154-1189) and there is plenty of evidence that for the next three centuries the Kings of England kept running horses.

Henry VIII had a training yard at Greenwich, imported horses for breeding and passed various laws related to the breeding of horses for racing.

Interest in the sport dropped during the reign of Elizabeth I but revived under her successor James I (James VI of Scotland), who founded the place now known as the ‘headquarters’ of racing.

James I (reigned 1603-25)

It was while he was on his way to Thetford with a hunting party in 1605 that James I stumbled on the town of Newmarket, reputedly killed six hares, enjoyed a picnic behind a bush and identified the heath as an ideal spot for racing.

Amateur horseraces had already been taking place there and the king immersed himself in the sport, building a palace in the town and establishing it as a royal resort.

The first traceable authentic race at Newmarket took place in 1622, when Lord Salisbury’s horse beat the Duke of Buckingham’s horse in a match for £100, and James was actually reprimanded by parliament for spending too much time racing and not enough time running the country.

His son Charles I was held prisoner in Newmarket for a time during the Civil War and racing’s royal connections meant it fell out of favour under parliamentarian rule.

James’s palace fell into disrepair, the heath was ploughed over and Oliver Cromwell banned racing – it was not useful, like archery, and he needed horses for his army.

Charles II (1660-85)

The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 was a key date for racing in general and Newmarket in particular as Charles II was a keen supporter.

By 1663 races had been re-established in a town to which the king moved his court twice a year – in March/April and in October, a seasonal pattern which gave the course’s season its subsequent framework.

Charles took a major step towards formalising the sport by organising the first race run under written rules. The rules, which he wrote himself, included stipulations that ‘No man should hold, strike or bring down another rider’ and ‘No serving men or groom men are allowed to compete’ – the sport of kings was for the elite.

Report has it that, to avoid getting the sun in his eyes, the king created a new stretch of track. It was called the Rowley Mile after Charles’s stallion – which in turn gave him his own nickname of ‘Old Rowley’ – and is the course over which the 1,000 Guineas and 2,000 Guineas Classic races are still run.

The king passed a law decreeing that the Twelve Stone Plate, now Newmarket Town Plate, should be run “for ever” and it is still staged every summer.

Charles won the race himself on Blew Capp and is the only reigning monarch to have ridden a winner.

Racing attracted huge crowds and the king’s role in turning the town into the most important place in the sport was reflected by the erection of a statue of him on the course, which was unveiled by the Duchess of Cornwall during celebrations to mark Newmarket’s 350th anniversary in 2017.

The king also had a significant impact on the breed. His marriage to Catherine of Braganza, daughter of John IV of Portugal, meant he acquired Tangier as a dowry – mares from there formed the basis the stock later bred with imported middle-eastern stallions Byerley Turk, Darley Arabian and Godolphin Arabian to develop the thoroughbred.

Queen Anne (1702-14)

Anne was as keen on racing as her uncle, Charles II. She owned many horses and attended race meetings throughout England with them.

However, her most significant and lasting impact on the sport came as a result of a chance discovery reminiscent of that of James I a century earlier.

While taking a carriage ride through the forest near Windsor Castle in 1711 she discovered a clearing that looked perfect for racing, large and flat – “ideal for horses to gallop at full stretch”.

The site was bought for £558 and prepared for racing, by order of the Queen. Later that year ‘Her Majesty’s Plate’ was run, with seven horses taking part in three heats over a distance of four miles at the new Ascot racecourse.

Racing at Ascot faded on Anne’s death, as George I, her successor, despised all sport. But it was revived in 1720 and the Queen’s founding of arguably the most famous racecourse in the world is marked by the running of the Queen Anne Stakes, which is now the first race on the programme at Royal Ascot (below) and has carried her name since 1930.

King George IV (1820-30)

George IV was the first member of the royal family to win one of the Classic horseraces, instituted in the late-18th and early 19th centuries.

Still Prince of Wales at the time, he bought Sir Thomas after the colt had won his only two-year-old race. His new purchase won his first two starts at three before seeing off ten rivals in the ninth running of the Derby at Epsom in 1788.

Sir Thomas did not make much impact on the course thereafter, and none at all at stud, but his owner, who acted as Prince Regent from 1811, helped popularise the sport with his improvements to Ascot, which was preserved for public use by act of parliament in 1813.

George IV founded the royal enclosure when he commissioned a new two-storey stand to be built with a surrounding lawn in 1822.

And three years later he began the tradition of the royal procession – the King led four other coaches with members of the royal party up the centre of the course in front of the crowds.

Queen Victoria (1837-1901)

Victoria donated a gold vase for a new race – now known as the Queen’s Vase – which was instituted at Royal Ascot to mark her first visit as Queen in 1838.

However, she was no enthusiast for racing and on coming to the throne she dispersed the Royal Stud at Hampton Court.

That led to the sale of Pocahontas, bred by her predecessor William IV, whose son Stockwell won the 2,000 Guineas and St Leger in 1852 and went on to have a huge impact at stud and was champion sire seven times.

However, despite her distaste for racing, Victoria re-established the royal stud in the 1850s and became one of the most successful breeders of the 19th century until the stud’s final dispersal in 1894.

She bred the winners of 11 Classics, including Sainfoin (1890 Derby) and La Fleche, who took the fillies’ Triple Crown in 1892 and the Gold Cup in 1894.

However, the best horse Victoria bred was Springfield, who won the inaugural runnings of the July Cup (1876) and Champion Stakes (1877).

Despite that success, she attended only one Derby; did not visit Ascot after the death of her husband, Prince Albert, in 1861 and notably refused to attend in the Golden Jubilee year of 1887. She also actively attempted – without success – to discourage her son Bertie, the future Edward VII, from becoming involved in the sport.

Her death in 1901 was marked by a ‘black’ Royal Ascot, with the royal stand closed, the racecard having a black border and dressing in black the order of the day.

Edward VII (1901-10)

Edward VII played a hugely important part in the development of racing by lending it an air of respectability in the second half of the 19th century.

There is no doubt the sport had what would nowadays be called an ‘image problem’, renowned for hedonism, gambling and skulduggery, which reached a height with the Running Rein ‘ringer’ scandal in the 1844 Derby.

The Queen shunned racing after the death of her husband so the patronage of her eldest son, then Prince of Wales, was vital as a sign that it was cleaning up its image.

He attended his first Derby at the age of 21 and defied his mother by having his own string of horses in training, having his first winner with Counterpane – ridden by Fred Archer – at Sandown in 1886.

He established a stud at Sandringham and bred two winners of the Derby within four years in Persimmon, whose victory in 1896 showed the popularity of the royal owner, who had to be led by police through the cheering crowds to lead in his winner, and Diamond Jubilee, who completed the Triple Crown in 1900 – a year his owner also won the Grand National with Ambush II.

Nine years later, when Minoru made the then Edward VII the first reigning monarch to win the Derby as an owner, one newspaper reported the crowd reaction as “the wildest scenes of enthusiasm ever known in England”.

George V (1910-36)

George V was the owner-breeder of Friar Marcus, the champion two-year-old in 1914 and champion sprinter of 1916, and the 1928 1,000 Guineas winner Scuttle.

He was probably more knowledgeable than his father and had a lasting influence in the way he encouraged a love of racing in his young granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

George VI (1936-52)

George VI came to the throne unexpectedly in 1936, following the abdication of his elder brother Edward VIII, who was a keen follower of racing – he rode winners under National Hunt rules and in point-to-points when Prince of Wales, and owned a Cheltenham Festival winner during his brief reign, Marconi in the NH Juvenile Chase.

But George VI’s impact was significant, no more so than in the way he kept the royal racing and breeding operation going through World War II, when most other sports came to a halt.

Meyrick Good of the Sporting Life, writing in the Cope’s Racegoer’s Encyclopaedia of 1948, said: “It was His Majesty’s characteristically quiet but courageous determination to carry on with his stable and stud during the darkest of the war years that enabled the sport to be maintained, and thus be in a position to get back into full operation when the war ended.”

Britain had still not enjoyed its first major victory of the war at El Alamein when Sun Chariot, leased from the National Stud, carried the royal colours to success in the fillies’ Triple Crown of 1,000 Guineas, Oaks and St Leger in 1942.

And 2,000 Guineas winner Big Game made it four out of five for the king in the wartime Classics – all staged at Newmarket – that season, his morale-boosting win cheered by a large crowd even though restrictions meant spectators had to walk several miles to get to the course and the owner himself was absent, learning of his success by telegram.

Those victories made him champion owner and George VI also won the 1,000 Guineas in 1946 with Hypericum. His wife, Queen Elizabeth, was a significant figure in racing in her own right, playing a huge part in the renewed prominence of jump racing, which had become a poor relation of the Flat.

Persuaded by leading amateur rider Lord Mildmay of Flete to buy a chaser, she was soon hooked, winning the first running of the Queen Elizabeth Chase with Monaveen and the King George VI Chase with Manicou.

Devon Loch: 1956 Grand National disaster

Ironically, nothing did more to promote the appeal of the Grand National than the mystery of her Devon Loch’s slipping up for no reason with the race at his mercy in 1956 – or the serene reaction of his owner, by then the Queen Mother: “Ah well, that’s racing.”

George VI and Elizabeth also inspired Britain’s most prestigious summer meeting. Ascot had founded the King George VI Stakes, a 2m contest for three-year-olds, in 1946 and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes, over 1m4f, in 1948.

Clerk of the course John Crocker Bulteel had the brainwave of combining the two in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, a top-notch 1m4f event won by stars such as Ribot, Mill Reef and Dancing Brave since it was first run in 1951.

And their love of racing was clearly passed on to their daughter, whose long run of success during her reign began with Aureole, with whom she won her parents’ race in 1954.