Royal Ascot 2025 - Carriage Lists

[CaveMum]

I did this last year and there was a reasonable amount of interest, so happy to do it again for each day of Royal Ascot.

Today’s list

'All about the company you keep.'

Are you sure you want to go down that path..........

The Bamfords??? Interesting addition to the list.

Yes, I didn't know about Carole Bamford before. She's very much into organic farming, and has various charitable projects in different parts of the world, one of which is aimed at educating UK children and young people about growing organic food, the countryside, and so on. Just the kind of thing the King would be interested in.

Sounds excellent.

Operation Deflection. 😃 😀
Easy to be charitable when hard working taxpayers are covering your 'shortfall' and you have friends at the very top. Half a billion is a lot of money. At current rates it could fund the cost to the exchequer for the royal family for almost 4 years. Anthony Paul slipped quietly away from House of Lords and still retains his title. 🤔

Ta ra until the next time.

It’s true he’s under investigation by HMRC, but I’m most amused at the attempt to characterise 79 year-old Anthony Bamford stepping down from the House of Lords last year as something murky. 🤣

@Whatacircus The Bamfords are racehorse owners and obviously notable company owners. Under investigation isn’t guilty unless I missed a change in the law.

Queen invited authors this year as part of her reading charity and Bremner? Might just be good company? Mark Prescott and Howden noted to be fun people too.

The people in the carriage are selected from the group that are invited to lunch that day. My former boss got to ride in the carriage when Royal Ascot went to York while the new grandstand was being built.

As mentioned, Lady Bamford is a successful racehorse owner and breeder. She owns Daylesford Stud and is probably best known for breeding the Oaks winners Sariska and Soul Sister. She also had a runner at Ascot today.

David Howden will have been there as Howden are now a corporate sponsor at Ascot. Race sponsorship is not permitted at Royal Ascot, but the course has lots of partnerships with a variety of brands.

My former boss got to ride in the carriage when Royal Ascot went to York while the new grandstand was being built.

Gosh, how exciting.
I wonder who'd get a go if they had to move elsewhere another time?

The carriage lists would not be any different really. Where someone lives isn’t a criteria. Quite surprised to see 3 racehorse trainers today though. Very unusual.

Surely everyone’s heard of Daylesford Organic?

Surely everyone’s heard of Daylesford Organic?

Everyone, naturally.
And the lovely face creams that mean you never need to go under the knife.
I hope I look as good at 80.

@CaveMum thanks for the thread.
I watched the last day of Ascot on ITV yesterday, hiding from the rain. Towards the end they interviewed ?? Felicity Bernard about the management and what it takes to put together such a popular event. Then there was discussion of the future and how things might change depending on who takes over isn’t the British Horseracing Authority. There seemed to be mutual agreement with the interviewer that depending who gets in there may be some unpopular decisions in the future. Can you shed any light on the conversation? I wasn’t quite sure what they were talking about.

@ShamedBySiri how long have you got?! There’s a lot of politics going on at the moment, well to be honest for years, in racing.

The crux of it all right now is that the BHA has been pretty powerless and, under previous CEOs, reluctant to implement change. At the moment there is an interim CEO as they’ve been unable to recruit someone into the position after the previous incumbent, Julie Harrington, left the role late last year. They’ve also had to recruit a new Chair as the previous, Joe Samaurez-Smith sadly died of lung cancer in the spring. Again there has been an interim chair and the new Chair, Lord Allen, was due to take over on 1st June. However he has postponed his start for not totally clear reasons that seem to be linked to the amount of control he wants to be able to have over the sport, which in unpopular amongst some factions.

The basics are - gambling turnover (which partially funds the sport via a tax known as “The Levy”) is falling, as is the horse population (fewer foals being bred), but the number of races being run remains consistently high.

Lots of people in the sport are calling for the number of races to be cut, which would mean bookmakers and racecourses losing money. The “horsemen” (owners, trainers, breeders) want fewer races, as do the jockeys, stable staff, etc.

The perverse thing about it all is that under the current structure, the number of races tin is dictated by the courses themselves, and not the BHA, so they have no power to stop them. It would be a bit like football teams being able to decide how often and where they were going to play matches, rather than the FA dictating the schedule each season.

Bottom-line is that Lord Allen appears to want to come in and shake all this up, taking back greater control which many people (myself included) think will be far better for the sport. But naturally those that stand to lose out, at least in the short term, are against any changes.

Does any of that make sense?!

I should also explain that falling gambling turnover means less money coming in via The Levy.

Less Levy means less money to be spread around across the races there are, which means prize money drops. The sensible thing to do is cut the number of races so that prize money levels can be maintained.

The falling horse population means races are being run with less horses in them which means they are less competitive and in turn less attractive as a betting medium, which leads to (as above) lower turnover and lower Levy.

Cutting the number of races means horses have less opportunities to run so increases the field size in each race.

Total gobbledygook to most of you I’m sure!

Actually very interesting @CaveMum - thank you for taking the time to explain.

Sounds like there should be a Dick Francis novel in there somewhere! (Most of what I know about horseracing comes from reading Dick Francis.)

Why is the horse population falling @CaveMum? Is it just because racehorse owning is an expensive business?

@CaveMum Brilliant explanation, you obviously follow the politics of racing. It’s quite evident there’s too many races.

The horse population? We, the Brits, are not as good as we should be at breeding horses. Most of the best horses are owner bred by very rich people and they keep lots of the best ones, eg Coolmore, Shadwell, Juddmonte, Cheveley Park etc. Many other breeders, and the foals or yearlings considered not quite the best from big name operations, go to the sales. Or they try and sell privately. The smaller studs will be keeping their mares and paying huge stallion covering fees. Sometimes £100,000 a pop. Could be £10,000 though. You can use stallions standing at the best studs or try cheaper ones for your mare. Making it pay at the lower ends of breeding is difficult. So why do it? You might get that great perfect yearling but plenty are not that and this is where the problem is. If you have perfect bloodlines and a beautiful yearling, there’s big money needed to buy it. £££ millions in some cases. Most breeders exist on crumbs though.

Loads of horses are now owned by syndicates. These tend to be horses bought at the sales. Then there’s prize money. It’s low. So most owners get a lot of expense and no reasonable return. Many can only dream of winning at Royal Ascot or Cheltenham. Training fees are not always clear on web sites, but Charlie Johnston is £95 a day. They’re including quite a lot in this. See attached. Many flat horses won’t see vets that much - a jumper will be very different. Might also run less and have way more time off. Therefore winning prize money is more challenging.

The horse population of jumpers is getting low too. Poor prize money (as explained - too many races) and far too many owners having horses bred and sourced by Irish trainers. Lots of these horses are never sold at public auction so it’s getting difficult to compete with the main Irish juggernaut unless Brits have very deep pockets and support British trainers. They don’t. Even the King and Queen have a horse trained in Ireland now.

So if a race is worth £2000 to the winner but your fees are £20,000 a year, the maths doesn’t stack up. It’s a very expensive hobby and people aren’t getting involved - except in Ireland. No buyers, no need to produce horses, fewer horses racing.

Sorry for ramble!

Cross posted with @TizerorFizz there 😊

But yes, unfortunately all the politics is part of my day job! It’s a brilliant industry to work in a lot of the time, but sometimes you do look at the same old (white, male) faces around the same boardroom tables and quietly think “Why don’t you shuffle off quietly and let someone else take over?!”

I think my post has been hidden as it has a link to the Racing Post in it! I’m not promoting gambling, just linking to an interesting news article!

Thank you, Tizer, that's very interesting. £2,000 prize money is peanuts really, isn't it, compared to the cost of keeping a racehorse. And modest owners are having to compete with people with very deep pockets, such as the Arabs.

The late Queen bred her own horses, didn't she? How significant was she as a breeder and owner? I think I read that the King isn't so interested in the breeding side.

The big race meetings are part of national life like Wimbledon and the Cup Final. It would be a pity if they just dwindled away.

All I can say is, thank God Cheltenham isn’t 5 days. Hope they post what you linked to. Was it about Lord Allen? He seems to want more time to investigate what’s he is taking on!

It’s also a big issue that racing attendance is down. Royal Ascot not so much (we think it’s very expensive) but lots of people go for one day once a year. However I cannot see the appeal of sitting on the brown grass of the jumps track as horses whizz by. Aintree has also got expensive. My Cheltenham membership - prices held. Lucky me. Haven’t had a horse for 10 years now and we are not going to buy one. It’s a sport we love but it’s costly to get involved.

Seems like this hideous 'sport' is in natural decline then. It's particularly gratifying to see the predatory gambling industry taking a hit.

Maybe the 'activists' will get their wish by default 🙂

The Queen was a good breeder and also Leading Owner a few times, but that was back in the day when most owners had relatively small strings and she would have been considered one of the largest. These days the big powerhouses like Coolmore and Godolphin have literally hundreds in training at any one time and even the once large, but smaller since the death of their principle, organisations like Shadwell, Juddmonte and Cheveley Park will have up to 100 in training at any one time. Then you have the new players like Amo and Wathnan who are trying to make an impact by throwing their cash around. We’ll wait and see if they have any long term impact, or if they are like Qatar Racing and gradually fizzle down to tens of horses.

The Royal string these days is probably no more than about 20 in training, plus a similar number of broodmares and followers. The King enjoys his racing, but it’s the Queen who is investing more time and energy into it.

I hate to rain on your parade @CathyorClaire, the industry is going through a rough patch right now there’s no denying it, and we may see the closure of some smaller racecourses which will have devastating impacts in some rural communities, but it’s not going to disappear anytime soon. Any industry worth over £4billion to the economy is not going to go down without a fight 😜