HATS OFF TO THE THREE LIONS

IF YOU thought putting on a morning coat and heading off to Berkshire meant escaping a prominent football tournament taking place in the bosom of the European Union, you should have tried walking out of the parade ring, marching past the bandstand and positioning yourself in Silks Bar. One of the stranger requests you will ever hear — and I mean this in a Royal Ascot context — was addressed to me there: ‘Hey, mate, can you take your hat off. I can’t see. I’m trying to watch the football.’ That’s like going to the Olympic pool and telling Tom Daley to get dressed. Anyway, there were more grey and blue lounge suits than waistcoats among the patrons in Silks as they turned their eyes to the big screen for England versus Wales. ‘I’m England till I die,’ they sang. The match was also followed avidly, if less raucously, in the Royal Enclosure. It all goes to show that, even at Ascot, football can claim to be one of our top two summer sports, along, obviously, with street brawling. If you are wondering what in the Sovereign’s name the Queen’s private racecourse was doing showing football at the very moment the Windsor Greys were starting out on the Royal procession, a few explanations. Nick Smith, spokesman for Ascot, says that: a) people can stream the match on their own digital equipment, so why not live in the real world and make it easier for them? b) Ascot shows every important sports events they can, be they Test cricket or the Olympics. Even the weighing room was plugged in to events in Lens. Frankie Dettori (left), the Ascot darling of Italian lineage, said: ‘It was on the screen but I wasn’t able to watch it. I just wanted Wales to win so I could give the rest of the guys plenty of stick.’ Not that supplementaries to the racing is a new phenomenon here. Once, an age ago, cockfighting and prizefighting took place after the last race, causing such a riot over the gambling that Windsor Castle sent in mounted soldiers. That is not how it works now. Yesterday, with security intensifying for Ladies’ Day, merely scanners and bag searches were deployed. And the biggest cheer of the day? It came just as Aidan O’Brien was celebrating his 50th Royal Ascot winner. Yet it was for the public address announcement that England had beaten Wales.