The Queen misses Derby for third time in reign
The Princess Royal will be in attendance as Her Majesty continues to suffer with mobility issues
THE Queen will miss the Epsom Derby today for only the third time in her reign, Buckingham Palace confirmed yesterday.
She will watch on television from Windsor Castle as she continues to suffer with mobility issues, with the Princess Royal attending in her place.
There is no question of Her Majesty missing the race altogether, as it is one of her favourite moments in the racing calendar. She would have undoubtedly seen Royal Champion win the 3.45 race at the meeting yesterday, minutes after the announcement was made that she would be unable to attend in person.
Her passion for the sport will be celebrated on ITV Racing this afternoon, in endearing and previously unseen footage showing the Queen at the Sandringham stables.
With a bowl of carrots to hand, she is seen assessing a thoroughbred and its foal before patting them and offering a reward. Filmed in April, the footage will be included in a five-minute-long special feature alongside interviews with her bloodstock and racing adviser, John Warren, trainer Sir Michael Stoute and jockey Ryan Moore.
Describing how the Queen fell in love with the sport, John Warren says: “The Queen never forgot when she went to see a thoroughbred for the first time. The thoroughbred has captured her imagination ever since.”
Stoute describes her understanding of how things go wrong more often than they go right: “It’s only the pressure you put upon yourself, because it doesn’t come from her. She’s been there, knows it.”
Moore says of riding for the Queen: “There is no pressure at all. She’s always let me ride with complete freedom and it’s been a tremendous honour for me.”
Behind-the-scenes footage shows Her Majesty calling one horse “extraordinary” and a “good girl”, offering carrots all round and remarking: “I do wonder what goes through her head.”
The clips will be shown on ITV Racing, which runs from 12.40pm until 5pm, with the segment also covering the Queen’s historic win with Estimate at Royal Ascot in 2013 and her nearmiss with Carlton House in the 2011 Derby.
The Queen’s love affair with horses started in 1942, when King George VI took the then Princess Elizabeth to see his best two horses at Beckhampton, the base for the royal trainer Fred Darling.
Even now, it is a rare day that she does not have contact with her racing adviser, John Warren, or fails to see the Racing Post. Each of her eight trainers telephone her in the morning before they have a Royal runner to run through its prospects and exchange with the Queen what might only be described as “racing banter”. High points in the racing calendar such as Derby day – which she first attended in 1945 – the five days of Royal Ascot, and Champions’ Day at Ascot in October, have traditionally been ring-fenced in her diary.
Until the pandemic, she had only missed the Epsom Derby twice since becoming Queen – in 1956 when she was on a state visit to Sweden, and in 1984 when attending a D-day memorial in France.
But what were high hopes for a win this year were dashed after her horses Reach for the Moon and Educator were withdrawn.