Right royal occasion

The Royal procession including The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, inset, arrive on day four of the Royal Ascot meeting in Berkshire. Each year, the crowds consume some 170,000 bottles of champagne, around 10,000 lobsters, 5,000 oysters and 18,000 punnets of strawberries during the five-day event.

The current Queen's involvement with racing stretches back to 1952, with her first winner, owned jointly with her mother, the humble Monaveen in a Fontwell jumps race. On the death of her father, King George VI, The Queen inherited the Royal string of Flat horses, which at the time were mainly trained by Cecil Boyd-Rochford and Noel Murless.

The Queen's first Royal Ascot success came when Choir Boy landed the 1953 Royal Hunt Cup, one of 11 successes during the 1950s. In all, following Free Agent's win in 2008, she has had 20 Royal Ascot winners. In 2005, the Royal Party relocated to York and attended all five days of the royal meeting. The Queen formally reopened the redeveloped Ascot in June, 2006.

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