<![CDATA[After her three day state visit to France, which
included commemorating the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings,
Her Majesty The Queen made the ‘Derby Dash’ back to the
Epsom Downs Racecourse to see Australia win the Investec Derby.
Her Majesty was joined by the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince and
Princess Michael of Kent and Princess Alexandra The Honourable Lady
Ogilvy as the Aidan Obrien trained favourite won from Kingston Hill
in the biggest race of the day at the Surrey racecourse.
Prince and Princess Michael at Epsom Racecourse. The Queen will
be arriving shortly pic.twitter.com/oJ3BEsmuwn
— Charlie Proctor (@charlie1proctor) June 7, 2014
The 11-8 favourite travelled beautifully and scoring by a length
and a quarter was roared home by a crowd of more than 100,000,with
Romsdal back in third place. Winning jockey Joseph Obrien saidL
“Horses don’t come any easier to ride than this one. He’s the
best”.
Before the racing there was plenty of entertainment for the waiting
crowds including various music styles and the Red Devils parachuted
in. The earlier races saw Caspian Prince win the Investec Mile
(Handicap) Cirrus Des Aigles win the Investec Coronation Cup,
Baitha Alga win the Investec Woodcote Stakes and What About Carlo
win the Investec Out of the Ordinary Stakes.
It was the Derby though that really got the crowds going with
Australia facing competition from the following runners: Romsdal,
Orchestra, Geoffrey Chaucer, Kingfisher, Ebanoran, Fascinating
Rock, Kingston Hill, True Story, Arod, Western Hymn, Impulsive
Moment, Snow Sky, Our Channel, Pinzolo, Sudden Wonder and Red
Galileo.
It wasn’t just the races that bookmakers were taking bets on
though. Strangely they were also taking bets on what colour hat Her
Majesty would be wearing. The odds were as follows: 4/1 on blue,
7/1 on yellow, 10/1 on white, 16/1 on black, 25/1 on gold, 33/1 on
silver and 100/1 on The Queen not wearing a hat at all. Let’s just
say that had you put money on any of the above you wouldn’t have
got anything back as Her Majesty wore a lilac hat. You would have
probably been better off betting on the horses rather than the
hats.
Featured image photo credit: jainaj via photopin cc]]>
Why an unrelated picture of the queen watching some other sport…. tennis?
Due to the fact many photos cost money, we rely on using Photo Pin, unless we have express permission from the photographer.