Hey again – back for another week. While Friday night (drinks/dinner with Anne’s colleagues) was fun and Sunday (working out, errands and naps) was relaxing, I think it’s best that I use the remaining space on our Saturday trip to the Royal Ascot races.
I guess that I was so overwhelmed by Anne’s beauty at our wedding, that among the “love, cherish, honor and obey” our vows included a requirement to “attend one horserace a year.” I don’t remember it happening, but Anne swears it did. As a result, we needed to get to a race and heard that the only races worth going to are the Royal Ascot races.
Sure enough, we heard right. But first, some background.
Ascot is a suburb about an hour southwest of London. There is a track there that has races all summer. However, the Royal Ascot week (well, technically five days) takes place in June and generally sees certain members of the Royal family attend. Saturday was day five, the crescendo of the British horseracing calendar.
We caught up with some of Anne’s Dutch colleagues at the Waterloo station after some very necessary sausage McMuffins and made like sardines to get on the train. You know its going to be an awesome Saturday when you are stuck in the middle of a train, standing the whole way, wearing a coat and tie and not having to hold a handrail because you are prevented from moving by the 26 other people touching you.
I new it was going to be good people-watching when on Wednesday, the BBC website started featuring galleries of the absurd women’s hats. I was not disappointed. The Royal Ascot races have convinced me that almost every woman there (my wife being one of the exceptions) got dressed looking at the wrong side of a one-way mirror. Anne was unable to contain her shock and it’s too bad we weren’t able to record the running diary of her fashion critiques. This will be its own blog later this week, I have no doubt.
Having made our way to the grandstands (past the fancy dress snots going up the Royal Enclosures), we realised that we had 2 and a half hours until the first of the six races. So naturally, we grabbed a pitcher of Pimms and hung out in the sun. At 2 PM we made our way to the parade ground to watch the arrival of the Queen, or Mum as I like to call her. Mum was looking very stately as she arrived in horse-drawn carriage and passed within about 30 feet of Anne and me a short time after the photos were taken.
We made our way back trackside after stopping by one of the 300 licensed sports books on site. Race 1 was literally won by a nose, with our horse’s nose not among those competing. Better luck in Race 2, when 17-2 Bronze Cannon (USA! USA!) chased down the leader in the last two furlongs for a decent return. Race 3 was uneventful and we decided at that point that we had all of the horseracing / people-watching fun needed for one day. To beat the crowd and the weather, we returned home and were back in the flat by 6:30.
Ok, Happy Father’s Day to everyone out there and we will catch up with you next week (Wimbleton perhaps?!?!), Until then….
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