Ascot’s royal fixer ‘sidelined over Qatar row’
WHEN the Queen gave permission for Royal Ascot to break with tradition and allow Qatar’s ruling al-Thani family to become the quintessentially British event’s first commercial partner, traditionalists feared there would be trouble ahead.
Now I hear the Queen’s cousin Lady Elizabeth Anson, who runs the Royal Enclosure, has been sidelined after a row at last year’s meeting when some members of the Qatari royal family took umbrage at not being sufficiently feted at the races.
‘For many years Lady Elizabeth has decided who gets into the Royal Enclosure and who doesn’t,’ says a friend. ‘Now she will just “mentor and train” those who do it. Of course, they won’t take a blind bit of notice, but it provides everyone concerned with a fig leaf to cover up what is really going on.’
Last year, the Qataris, who sponsor Royal Ascot through their holding company Qipco, had been invited to lunch with the Queen at Windsor Castle and expected they would ride with her in a horse- drawn landau during the carriage procession. Former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore claimed the Emir of Qatar’s cousin Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Thani, chief executive of Qipco, and his mother Sheikha Amna bint Mohammed Al-Thani expected to be riding with the Queen.
While the Emir enjoyed this privilege, the Sheikha discovered at the Windsor lunch that she and her son would be in the third carriage.
She is said to have been so upset she insisted to her son that they must return at once to London and forgo the procession and the racing. An official claimed their absence was ‘due to a family health issue’.
It was claimed that shortly afterwards Lady Elizabeth, who is the Qataris’ PR woman and social fixer, was in tears, amid reports she had been summarily dismissed. To add to the confusion, Lady Elizabeth, who had arranged the Qataris’ involvement in Ascot, was later reported to have been reinstated.
An Ascot spokesman confirms: ‘Lady Elizabeth has been employed for many years to advise on matters relating to the Royal Enclosure.’ He insists the ‘arrangement is to continue this year’, but declines to specify what her role will be.