Hold your Horses - It's Royal Ascot

Finally, our big day has arrived, with much anticipation and a little sadness, since our horse Masoun will not be racing today. Undeterred we got ready for an awesome day of outstanding racing, pomp and ceremony, big crowds and hopefully a few bets going our way.

Royal Ascot has a very strict dress code particularly for the Royal Enclosure the area where we would be based. Top Hat and Tails for men which will be interesting with the temperature predicted to be nudging 30 degrees. Jeanette had her 'to specification' dress sorted months ago and had designed and made her hat herself. The train from Waterloo Station to Ascot was the easiest, cheapest and best option for us, so we took the tube across from Paddington to Waterloo to get our day underway. Traveling on the tube in full formal dress was a little interesting, but there weren't too many funny looks.

The train to Ascot left at 10am and took a little under an hour. We hopped off the train and started the 10-minute walk up to the racecourse without incident. Quite a few people were having a beer or wine on the train ride, but this seemed to be perfectly acceptable and certainly didn't lead to any issues. The walk was very pleasant through a natural area shaded by trees; there were touts along the way trying to buy/sell tickets, but their efforts appeared fruitless.

As we expected everything was extremely well organized and entry to Ascot was a breeze, each of the sections were clearly marked - with an expected crowd for the day of 70,000 plus everything needed to be spot on and it certainly was.

We were located in the Wyndham Restaurant for the day. It was located on the extensive parklike lawn/garden area just behind the main stand, next to the parade ring with excellent access to all the key areas including the main grandstand near the finish line. Needless to say, it was a great spot with everything on our doorstep. There was also powerful air-conditioning which made a massive difference as the day went on. The Restaurant had top service from awesome staff and even better food prepared by a Michelin chef. Albert Bosma and a group from Go Racing back home were in the restaurant so it was good to catch up with them.

We had been to Royal Ascot last year as part of our big 3-month OE so pretty much knew what to expect. Even allowing for that we were blown away by the whole experience. Part of the deal is before the start of the day the Royals parade from Windsor Castle down the home straight in a total of 4 horse drawn carriages. There was another bunch of Royals waiting to greet them in the parade ring. Jeanette was completely in her element and well and truly got her fill of royal fever as she happily named a majority of those corralled in the ring including: Fergie, her daughter Eugenie and Zara Phillips.

King Charles and Queen Camila came out from under the grandstand in the lead carriage. Unfortunately, no Prince William or Kate (much to Jeanette's disappointment). There was much noise and waving of union jack flags as they progressed along. It's not my thing but I'd have to concede it was quite a spectacle and Jeanette certainly loved it.

Wandering around the grounds there were lots of interesting sculptures and artwork to view. Most impressive though was the amazing dresses, hats and the obvious effort everyone had put into looking fabulous - not in a Wellington 7s circa early 2000's way!

With the pre-match over the serious business of watching races and picking winners got underway. We settled into our table and did some last-minute study. We had a decent pot to work with as we had had a very good collect on Masoun winning the previous week in Ireland. Jeantte struck early with a big win courtesy of outsider Time for Sandals who stormed home paying 29 pounds for the win.

The racing was really interesting top horses and mostly huge fields - up to 30 horses in a race - so betting was pretty challenging. Something that was really different from home is that races up to 1600m (1 Mile) are straight run down the home straight. We're used to in a 1600-meter race (as an example) horses running down the back straight of the course, around the home corner and then charging for home down a 300–500-meter home straight. Watching them jump, run in a straight line and finish was a bit weird. Overall there were a lot of close finishes and some very exciting racing. Betting wise after our great start we lost a few then would win a decent amount, lose a few... We were coming to the end of the day and decided to buy a couple of 20 pound 'lucky' multi bet things, which actually did turn out to be lucky and we picked up 195 pounds to finish the day.

The whole day flew by; it really is a unique and amazing experience! The TV guys interviewed cricket legend Brian Lara who was on course (he's a regular) and he stated emphatically Royal Ascot would be 1 of his top 5 must attend sporting events. High praise indeed.

After the last race the music got underway, and the singalong started. We slipped quietly away completely satisfied with our day. Considering the size of the crowd getting out of the venue and onto the train to London proved to very simple. There are 2 tube stations that serve our hotel well. Lanchester Gate - smaller but just a couple of minutes away and Paddington a major transport hub and around 7-10 minute walk. We were originally on the Bakerloo line to Paddington. However Jeanette's feet were killing her so she recommended we jump off the Paddington train at Oxford Circus and change to the Central line which goes directly to Lanchester Gate and a much shorter walk home, A cunning plan EXCEPT to walk from where we got off to the Central Line took ages to walk the long winding tunnels and would have ended up being about the same as staying on the Bakerloo line! We live and learn, and Jeanette managed to stagger home so everything ended OK!