One of the world’s most famous horse races, the Ascot Gold Cup, will be renamed in honour of Queen Elizabeth II to celebrate her 90th birthday.
Ascot announced that the meeting, attended by members of the Royal Family, will pay tribute to the Queen upon her turning 90 years old.
The two-and-a-half mile race, won by Her Majesty’s Estimate in 2013, will now be renamed the Gold Cup in Honour of The Queen’s 90th birthday on June 16.
Johnny Weatherby, Her Majesty’s representative at Ascot, said: “We are delighted to be celebrating the Queen’s 90th birthday in the race title of the Gold Cup.
“The Gold Cup, recently won of course by the Queen herself, is the historic centrepiece of Royal Ascot, and is very much the race which resonates most with the public.”
Back in 2013, The Queen made history when she became the first ever monarch to win the Ascot Gold Cup with her horse, Estimate. It was the first time in the race’s 207-year history that it a reigning monarch had won the race.
During her reign, the Queen has had a total of 22 wins at Royal Ascot, with her first win back in 1953, with the horse Choir Boy.
This will not be the only race named in honour of the 90 year old. There are three others, those being the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes, the Queen Elizabeth II Commemorative Cup and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.
The Queen currently has won over 1,600 races making her one of the most successful racehorse owners in history. She has also won every one of the five British Classic Races, many multiple times, except the Epsom Derby, a race that the Queen has yet to grasp finishing agonizingly close in the year of her coronation, 1953, where Aureole finished second to Pinza. In 1954 and 1957, she was named British flat racing Champion Owner, the first reigning monarch ever to do so twice
