York Guides

Jim Delahunt looks forward to history being made at York’s Knavesmire this week

The five-day extravaganza, known this year as Royal Ascot at York, runs from Tuesday to Saturday and, nearly 300 years on from Queen Anne’s decision to spend 558 pounds, 19 shillings and 5 pence on building a racecourse on the clearing in Windsor Forest, then known as Ascott Common, the great, the good and the bad will gather to witness the annual dramas of a great British institution being played out.

Strictly speaking, it will be the first Royal meeting to be held away from Ascot but while the finery and glamour may have been understandably missing during the world wars of the 20th century, the principal races of the meeting were run as substitute events at Newmarket between 1915 and 1918 and also between 1941 and 1944.

Indeed, such was the high in the country after the Kaiser had been defeated, a Royal procession was held every day of the 1919 meeting for the first time. While it took a few years for that to become the regular occurrence it is today, the Royal Ascot which will be copied at York this week had finally come of age.

Why have they taken the meeting to York though? Newbury wanted to stage it and local opinion was behind the bid from another Berkshire racecourse but while the National Hunt emporium which is Cheltenham also made a genuine attempt to host the meeting, the move north was chosen.

From a racing point of view, the decision was based on assurances from York that track improvements would be of primary importance. The forest green velvet coats and black top hats of the Yeoman who guard the Royal enclosure would not be out of place at a venue which rivals Ascot for being sticklers for proper dress but when it came to the racing, the maximum trip at York has always been two miles.

As things stood, the Gold Cup could not have been held at its normal distance as there wasn’t a round course but such was the determination to stage the meeting on The Knavesmire that land was purchased to make the track oval shaped, with the new turf allowing the distance to be increased to the Gold Cup trip of two-and-a-half miles.

Historically, the two tracks go back a long way and while the current monarch didn’t pay her first visit to the Yorkshire venue until 1972, almost 20 years after her succession, she was the first reigning royal to go racing at York since King Charles I, who attended a meeting held on Acomb Moor in 1633, 78 years before Ascot staged its first meeting.

By 1709, York races were held at Clifton and Rawcliffe Ings on the banks of the Ouse and in 1711, the same year as those first races were held at Ascot, Queen Anne laid down an early marker for what will this week become a historic link by sponsoring a 100 guineas plate at the northern venue.

The sporting treasure we now know as Royal Ascot began back in 1845 when the first Royal Enclosure became operational, but the meeting’s centrepiece, the Gold Cup, began life in 1807 and was increased to its current distance of two-and-a-half miles the following year.

Apart from a break between 1844 and 1853, when the race was known as the Emperor’s Plate in deference to Royal cousins in Russia, the race approaches its 200th anniversary in two years’ time boasting a history littered with names of great horses and memories of magnificent contests.

Since Sagaro became the only horse to land the race three times, between 1975 and 1977, Le Moss, Ardross, Gild oran, Sadeem, Drum Taps, Kayf Tara and Royal Rebel have all been dual winners and the horse which finished second to the last named scorer in 2002, Vinnie Roe, will be back to contest the race for the first time since then on Thursday.

In the intervening years, Vinnie Roe has won three more Irish St Legers to complete a historic four-timer in that race, finished fifth in an Arc de Triomphe and fourth and second in two Melbourne Cups, a race he’s again being targeted at this season. Now successful in 13 of his 25 career starts, Vinnie Roe will try and make up for his short head defeat at Ascot in 2002 by landing the Knavesmire version this week.

His name may make him sound more like one of the highwaymen who were reg ularly strung up before racing on the Knavesmire in the 18th century but for Vinnie Roe, it should be immortality rather than notoriety which is assured on Thursday.