The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee: The Royal Horses

The Queen’s first winner on the flat came in a surprisingly lofty race for a debut success, when Stream Of Light took the 1952 Lancashire Oaks. On her succession to the throne, the Queen took over the running of the Royal Studs. This inevitably gave her the opportunity to develop her passion for pedigrees and attempt the mountainous, some would say impossible, task of making each mating plan a successful one.

The Coronation year looked poised to produce a dream result in the one race that any monarch would dearly love to win: the Derby at Epsom. The Queen’s runner Aureole was strongly fancied to win the 1953 Derby, but lost out to Pinza. On any other occasion, Pinza’s win would have been strongly welcomed, as it marked a first Derby for the renowned jockey Gordon Richards, later knighted for his achievements in the saddle, after 28 attempts.

Aureole has been the closest the Queen has come to winning the Derby, although Milford was a popular fancy for the 1979 race but finished down the field behind his stablemate Troy.

While beaten at Epsom, Aureole was nonetheless a top-class racehorse, winning one of Britain’s most important races, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, a race run in honour of Her Majesty’s parents. Aureole had also landed a popular victory earlier in the summer at Royal Ascot in the Hardwicke Stakes, providing one leg of a double at the meeting along with Landau in the Rous Memorial Stakes.

Although the Derby eluded her, the Queen enjoyed better luck in Epsom’s other Classic race, the Oaks, run over the same distance as the Derby but restricted to fillies. Carozza gave the Queen her first Classic winner in the 1957 Oaks, although she had two runners and the better-fancied one, Mulberry Harbour, was well beaten.