Royal Ascot Tips 2022

When is the Royal Ascot Festival 2022?

Royal Ascot 2022 takes place from the 14th – 18th June.

Royal Ascot Week is an iconic event held at Ascot Racecourse in June each year. A chance to impress in all your finery, this three hundred year old event attended by the Queen began life in 1711.

Ascot Racecourse is situated in Berkshire and was founded by Queen Anne in 1711. Queen Anne, as with our Queen Elizabeth today, was a keen horsewoman and the first race at Ascot was “Her Majesty’s Plate” held on 11th August 1711.

Seven horses competed for a prize of 100 guineas (which today would be around £10.5k). Now the total prize money is estimated to be over £7.3 million, with the summer highlight “King George” race enjoying a £1.25 million prize.

That first race comprised of three separate four mile heats. Today, Royal Ascot week features eight Group One races and nineteen Group races in total. Sadly, no record was kept of that very first winner at Ascot back in 1711, so we can only imagine what the name of that horse may have been!

It is surprising to know that from its creation in 1711 up until 1945, the only racing that took place at Ascot was the Four Day Royal Event. Since 1945, additional fixtures have been added to the racecourse, notably the addition of National Hunt racing in 1965. The National Hunt course was created using turf from Hurst Park Racecourse which closed in 1962.

The Royal Ascot Event

Over the years the horses making the headlines at Royal Ascot have had an increasingly international flavour, with representation from USA, Australia and Hong Kong. The majority of trainers are still from the UK and Ireland though.

From its inception in 1768 up until 2002, Royal Ascot was a four day event. In 2002 it was increased to five days in celebration of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.

Not only is this a key event in the horse racing calendar but also in the social calendar. Over three hundred thousand people attend one of the three enclosures, with the Royal Enclosure naturally being the most prestigious!

The famous Ascot Gold Cup was introduced in 1807, and it was this key event that was really the making of the Royal Ascot event. Winners have been recorded since 1807, right from the first “Master Jackey” through to the 2020 winner Stradivarius.

For those lucky enough to be a winning owner of the Gold Cup, you will be presented with a gold trophy, traditionally by the ruling Monarch, which is yours to keep. The same goes for the Queen’s Vase (in commemoration of the coronation of Queen Victoria) and the Royal Hunt Cup (introduced in 1843).

Winning owners of the remaining races are presented with a Challenge Trophy, which is returned to Ascot to be presented to their successor the following year.

This is a truly historic annual event with all the pomp, tradition and excitement you might expect of a Royal event, and of course the chance to see some of the best horses in the world in action.