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The Queen spoke fondly of Royal Ascot in the foreword for this year’s programme.
She said: “My family and I greatly look forward to Royal Ascot.
“Tradition and innovation sit comfortably together over five days of racing.”
It has been a week of high drama for the Royals, with the Duchess of Sussex making her first appearance at the prestigious event.
On Wednesday, the Queen watched her horse, Seniority, run in the afternoon’s Royal Hunt Cup.
Seniority failed to take the top spot, losing out to Settle for Bay who ran away with the title.
But, with Royal Ascot being such a firm favourite in the Royal Family’s calendar, how many times has Her Majesty had something to celebrate at the summer meet?
Since her first meeting as Sovereign in 1952, the Queen has won a total of 23 times at Ascot.
It didn’t take long for her to get her first win, with one of her horses taking first place just one year later.
The 1953 meet was just a couple of weeks after her coronation, so made a great start to her reign.
However, the most momentous win of all was fairly recently, when Her Majesty got to enter the winner’s enclosure in 2013.
In that year, her horse, Estimate, made Queen Elizabeth the first reigning monarch to win the prestigious Gold Cup.
It was a close race, but the Queen was seen celebrating as her horse took home the prize.
Between 1999 and 2008, the Queen wasn’t so lucky, and went almost a decade without a win at the races.
That came to an end with Free Agent, who won the Chesham Stakes on just his second career race start.
The Queen has a couple of other entries running this week, with Elector racing later today and Call To Mind set to compete on Saturday.ent, who won the Chesham Stakes on just his second career race start.
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