The World’s Greatest Blog

Royal Ascot Order of Running

The order of racing for Royal Ascot this week:

FIRST DAY TUESDAY
17 th JUNE

BBC1 2.30 pm The Queen Anne Stakes (Group 1) 4+ £250,000 One Mile
BBC1 3.05 pm The King’s Stand Stakes (Group 1) 3+ £250,000 Five furlongs
BBC2 3.45 pm The St James’s Palace Stakes (Group 1) 3 colts £250,000 Old mile
BBC2 4.20 pm The Coventry Stakes (Group 2) 2 £100,000 Six furlongs
BBC2 4.55 pm The Ascot Stakes (Handicap) 4+ £60,000 Two and a half miles
ATR 5.30 pm The Windsor Castle Stakes (Listed) 2 £60,000 Five furlongs
SECOND DAY WEDNESDAY
18 th JUNE

BBC1 2.30 pm The Jersey Stakes (Group 3) 3 £70,000 Seven furlongs
BBC1 3.05 pm The Windsor Forest Stakes (Group 2) 4+ fillies £140,000 One mile
BBC2 3.45 pm The Prince of Wales’s Stakes (Group 1) 4+ £375,000 One and a quarter miles
BBC2 4.20 pm The Royal Hunt Cup (Heritage Handicap) 3+ £100,000 One mile
BBC2 4.55 pm The Queen Mary Stakes (Group 2) 2 fillies £80,000 Five furlongs
ATR 5.30 pm The Sandringham Stakes (Listed) (Handicap) 3 fillies £60,000 One mile
THIRD DAY THURSDAY
19 th JUNE

BBC1 2.30 pm The Norfolk Stakes (Group 2) 2 £80,000 Five furlongs
BBC1 3.05 pm The Ribblesdale Stakes (Group 2) 3 fillies £150,000 One and a half miles
BBC2 3.45 pm The Gold Cup (Group 1) 4+ £250,000 Two and a half miles
BBC2 4.20 pm The Britannia Stakes (Heritage Handicap) 3 colts &
geldings £100,000 One mile
BBC2 4.55 pm The Hampton Court Stakes (Listed) 3 £60,000 One and a quarter miles
ATR 5.30 pm The King George V Stakes (Heritage Handicap) 3 £60,000 One and a half miles

FOURTH DAY FRIDAY
20 th JUNE

BBC1 2.30 pm The Albany Stakes (Group 3) 2 fillies £70,000 Six furlongs
BBC1 3.05 pm The King Edward VII Stakes (Group 2) 3 colts &
geldings £200,000 One and a half miles
BBC2 3.45 pm The Coronation Stakes (Group 1) 3 fillies £250,000 Old mile
BBC2 4.20 pm The Wolferton Rated Stakes (Listed) 4+ £60,000 One and a quarter miles
BBC2 4.55 pm The Queen’s Vase (Group 3) 3 £60,000 Two miles
ATR 5.30 pm The Buckingham Palace Stakes (Handicap) 3+ £60,000 Seven furlongs
FIFTH DAY SATURDAY
21 st JUNE

BBC2 2.30 pm The Chesham Stakes (Listed) 2 £60,000 Seven furlongs
BBC2 3.05 pm The Hardwicke Stakes (Group 2) 4+ £150,000 One and a half miles
BBC2 3.45 pm The Golden Jubilee Stakes (Group 1) 3+ £375,000 Six furlongs
BBC2 4.25 pm The Wokingham Stakes (Heritage Handicap) 3+ £100,000 Six furlongs
ATR 5.00 pm The Duke of Edinburgh Stakes
(Heritage Handicap) 3+ £60,000 One and a half miles
ATR 5.35 pm The Queen Alexandra Stakes (Conditions) 4+ £60,000 Two miles, six furlongs

Tickets

Tickets are available online for every day of Royal Ascot this week. Just click on this link to go to Shop Online 4 Event Tickets. 

Betting

There are a variety of free bets available online as well as lots of statistics and tips - at Systemlays.co.uk . For those who are unfamiliar with betting online, there a series of helpful guides.

Share This

Royal Ascot: Tuesday 17th June - Saturday 21st June 2008

Get Tips for Saturday at Royal Ascot by Clicking Here.

Royal Ascot is the flagship racing and social event of the British summer. As it approaches its tercentenary in 2011, Royal Ascot is opening with three Group One races - ensuring top quality international racing.

Coverage

In 2007, BBC Breakfast was based at Ascot attracting more than 4 million viewers during
every programme. Viewers in the UK will be able to see 24 of the 30 races live on the BBC and audiences in over 200 countries around the world will be able to view all the action via BBC Worldwide.

Pedigree

Over the year, although Ascot stages only approximately 2% of British racing fixtures, it plays host to no fewer than a third of Britain’s top flight (Group One) events. It also accounts for approximately 10% of industry attendance (circa 275,000 during Royal Ascot week alone).

The King’s Stand Stakes, Europe’s most international race and won in both 2006 and 2007 by Australian trained runners, has been promoted to the top flight this year and will form the middle leg of a Group One treble on Tuesday 17 th June, in between the Queen Anne Stakes and the St James’s Palace Stakes.

Royal Ascot has long been the benchmark for quality in horseracing and continues to improve. Four races have been promoted to Group One status since 1999, when
only three were staged during the week.

The 2007 renewal of the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, arguably Royal Ascot’s premier event in the modern era, was rated the highest quality race run anywhere in the world last year. This accolade is defined by the official world rankings, which are compiled by senior handicappers from every continent.

In defeating subsequent King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes and Arc winner, Dylan
Thomas, and the Eclipse Stakes winner, Notnowcato, the Frenchtrained Manduro put up the best performance of any horse in the world at Royal Ascot last year.

Prize Money

Prize money at the 2008 Royal Meeting will total £4 million, an increase of £335,000 on 2007. All of the 30 races are now worth more than £60,000.

Both the Golden Jubilee Stakes and The Prince of Wales’s Stakes have benefited from a
£25,000 increase and will now be run for £375,000, making them the joint most valuable races of the week.

Britain’s Global Sprint Challenge races are the King’s Stand (at Ascot), the Golden Jubilee and the Darley July Cup. They now offer over £1,000,000 in combined prize money following the increases that Ascot and Newmarket announced late last year. Additionally, connections can start the US$1,000,000 challenge bonus chase after winning any of the three UK legs now – they would then need to be successful in two out of three of the subsequent Japanese, Australian and Hong Kong Group One legs.

Class and Snobbery

It’s worth pointing out an amusing article in The Independent by Charlie Methven, lamenting an alleged decline in dignity at this ancient and regal event:

Crowded, expensive, and with about as much class as a stretch limo. “It’s like the last days of the Roman Empire, with miniskirts instead of togas,” says one old hand. “The type of drunken behaviour that used to be particular to the cheap seats has spilled into smarter areas – and now anyone can get badges to the Royal Enclosure.”

Nevertheless, Ascot does play host to the Royal family at intervals during the week, and you can’t get much classer than Our Ma’am.

Tickets

Tickets are available online for every day of Royal Ascot this week. Just click on this link to go to Shop Online 4 Event Tickets.

Betting

There are a variety of free bets available online as well as lots of statistics and tips - at Systemlays.co.uk . For those who are unfamiliar with betting online, there a series of helpful guides.

Get Tips for Saturday at Royal Ascot by Clicking Here.

Share This

North Riding Dales LVA Charity Bike Ride 2008

Wednesday 11th June was the annual North Riding Dales LVA Charity Bike Ride through Wensleydale which took place in characteristic spirit. The idea is to cycle between Leyburn and Hawes in order to raise money for good causes. The participants cycle updale and downdale on alternate years. This year was the more difficult uphill struggle towards Hawes. Many took the edge off with regular stops at the many public houses along the way. Pictured here is the Fox and Hounds in West Witton with landlord Andrew “Blackie” Blackburn shown marshalling the revellers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Sheep, Sheep and More Sheep

Living in Wensleydale we see a lot of sheep. Behind our house there are some very tame texels meaning that we can get some fairly decent close-ups. The little lambs are taking it easy these days - the sheep equivalent of teenagers. Lazing around in the balmy sunshine - a welcome break after their introduction to world which involved several weeks of snow:

Share This

Places to Visit on School / Bank Holidays: Hardraw Waterfall

Hardraw waterfall is the tallest single drop, above ground, waterfall in England. It is also the waterfall under which Kevin Costner’s bum double swam in front of Maid Marion in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The naked swim scene is famed for being the moment when Maid Marion first sees her future husband. The waterfall itself is situated behind the Green Dragon pub in Hardraw, Upper Wensleydale. Entry is £2 because the grounds are privately managed by the pub (not English Heritage or National Trust). Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Places to visit on school / bank holidays: Rievaulx Abbey

Rievaulx Abbey is hidden away between the North York Moors and Cleveland Hills near Sutton Bank. It is extortionate to get in so take some cash with you or plan to walk to the abbey. (£10.50 per car I seem to remember). We did get the audio tape tour to take with us though.

The abbey is really imposing once you drive there through rolling hills and fields and suddenly see this huge stone structure. The ruins are fantastic great big buildings. Read the rest of this entry »

Share This

Epsom Derby 2008 - Free Tips

This is just a short note to all about the Vodafone Epsom Derby 2008 - over at Systemlays, you can get free horse racing tips and selections. This year’s Epsom Derby is no different: click this link and you can get free tips for the Epsom Derby 2008! Just click the link. Amaze your friends with your powers of perception.

You might even win a pound or two on this year’s Derby at Epsom (though that is by no means guaranteed!!)…

Share This

Places to Visit on School / Bank Holiday: Aysgarth Falls

Aysgarth Falls in Wensleydale were the setting for this (poorly recorded) fight scene between Little John and Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Visitors beware, the car park charges £2.20 for a visit but if you’re wily you can park in the village and walk down. There’s a visitor centre, toilets and a tea room. Last time we were there we spotted a rare woodpecker as well as some ducklings.

Share This

The Derby at Epsom: History and Running for 2008

The 229th Derby begins today - the epitome of British racing. Horses are specially bred for this event, which commands total prize money of £1,413,500 and was watched by 3,649,000 people in 193 countries last year.

The Derby was named after Edward Smith Stanley, the 12th Earl of Derby and forms one of the five “Classics” - a series of races that are run over the flat (i.e. without hurdles) by three-year-old horses. The five races are:

• Two Thousand Guineas Stakes
• One Thousand Guineas Stakes
• Oaks Stakes
• Epsom Derby Stakes
• St. Leger Stakes

The Two Thousand Guineas, St. Leger Stakes and The Derby make up the British Triple Crown which 15 horses have achieved, starting with West Australian in 1853 and ending for the moment with Nijinsky in 1970.
The race itself is a flat sprint. Epsom is shaped almost like a horse shoe. The start takes the jockeys along a fast straight that lead to a long and gradual bend. The bend sharpens at Tattenham Corner where the horses slow down before picking up into the home straight to finish in front of the Royal Box. It is Tattenham Corner where Emily Wilding Davison threw herself under the King’s horse in order to protest the lack of women’s suffrage in 1913.

Over the last 200 or so years, people from all walks of life have strived for Derby glory. The current Aga Khan has maintained his family’s proud traditions with four winners, the last being in 2000 when Sinndar carried his colours. His most famous victory was provided when Walter Swinburn galloped to a ten-length win aboard the ill-fated Shergar. Over the last ten years, none have been so dominant as Dubai’s ruling Maktoum’s family, winning the Derby no less than three times.

Shergar won the Derby by an unprecendented and unparalled 10 lengths only to be kidnapped from his stables in Ireland in a rumoured IRA plot. The reason that his disappearance caused such a stir is that a Derby-winners are almost exclusively retired to stud after their achievement and are put to work covering around 200 mares a year in an attempt to breed another Derby winner. At least one offspring, of such a clear-cut winner as Shergar, will be highly likely to win the Derby (given the right mare) and so Derby winners instantly become worth around £10 million.

Order of Running for the 2008 Epsom Derby

FRIDAY, JUNE 6 - LADIES DAY

• BBC 1.40pm The Juddmonte Diomed Stakes (Group Three) 1m 114yds £50,000
• BBC 2.10pm The Mile Handicap 1m 114yds £30,000
• BBC 2.45pm The Rose Bowl Heritage Handicap 1m 2f 8yds £50,000
• BBC 3.25pm The Juddmonte Coronation Cup (Group One) 1m 4f 10yds £200,000
• BBC 4.05pm The Juddmonte Oaks (Group One) 1m 4f 10yds £350,000
• 4.50pm The Surrey Stakes (Listed) 7f £26,000
• 5.25pm The Tattenham Handicap 7f £20,000

SATURDAY, JUNE 7 - DERBY DAY

• BBC 1.40pm The Epsom Downs Heritage Handicap 1m 2f 8yds £50,000
• BBC 2.10pm The Woodcote Stakes (Listed) 6f £25,000
• BBC 2.40pm The Princess Elizabeth Stakes (Group Three) 1m 114yds £50,000 (Sponsored by Vodafone)
• BBC 3.15pm The ‘Dash’ Handicap 5f £50,000
• BBC 4.00pm The Vodafone Derby Stakes (Group One) 1m 4f 10yds £1,250,000
• 4.45pm The Northern Dancer Handicap 1m 4f 10yds £25,000
• 5.20pm The Sprint Handicap 6f £25,000

For the latest on the Epsom Derby meet, see Systemlays.co.uk

Share This

Tawny Owl Chicks in Upper Wensleydale

Whilst visiting Hardraw Waterfall behind the Green Dragon pub in Upper Wensleydale, we spotted some tawny owl chicks. I had whistled in an attempt to startle some sitting rabbits in a field nearby, because my little cousin couldn’t quite see them. However, the loud noise had the inadvertent effect of startling two adult tawny owls sitting in a tree right next to us. When we looked at the branch they had flown from, we noticed two owl chicks nestling amongst the foliage. The pictures aren’t great but we couldn’t get any closer:

Share This