T H E W O R L D ’ S F I N E S T B O O K M A K E R : TA K I N G B E T S S I N C E 1 8 8 2 • F I T Z D A R E S . C O M • 1 2 T H E D I T I O N , S U M M E R 2 0 2 0 • N O U N D E R 2 1 s
OUR HENRY The rise, fall and rise again of the great Sir Henry Cecil
PATRICK GRANT The tailor’s seamless move into PPE manufacturing
WESLEY WARD The US trainer on conquering Royal Ascot every year
BY TONY RUSHMER
BY WILLIAM WOODHAMS
BY RORY FAIRFAX
THE OF
SPORT QUEENS
For seven decades, the jewels in Her Majesty the Queen’s crown have been her racehorses. Cornelius Lysaght looks at a lasting love affair HE LOFTY POSITIONS held by the racecourses at Ascot, Epsom, Newbury and Newmarket in the racing life of the Queen are regularly well documented. In contrast, the significance of leafy Fontwell Park, the partially figure-ofeight jumps track nestling beside the main Chichester-to-Worthing road in West Sussex, is spoken of less often. But it was here that Her Majesty tasted the first of her 1,011 (and counting) British successes. The year was 1949, the horse Monaveen. He was owned in partnership with her mother, Queen Elizabeth, and prepared by Peter Cazalet, subsequently the Queen Mother’s
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principal trainer, at Fairlawne in Kent. With Princess Elizabeth present to watch, jockey Tony Grantham rode the eight-year-old to victory in the Chichester Handicap Chase against two opponents, one of whom was trained by “Towser” Gosden, father of John. The Irish-bred Monaveen had been a handful as a youngster. In an attempt to calm him a little, he had been employed to pull a milk float around County Meath. However, once racing he was transformed by headgear and came recommended by Grantham, who had ridden the horse previously for trainer Peter Thrale. Fontwell was followed by wins at Sandown and the defunct Hurst Park, now
mainly housing at Molesey, Surrey. This made the horse a leading fancy for the 1950 Grand National where, cheered on by Princess Elizabeth and the Royal family, he finished fifth. So, for all of the contenders in flat racing’s Classics, at home and abroad, and at Royal Ascot, the first big-race hope in the Queen’s colours – scarlet with purple hooped sleeves and a black cap in the days before she inherited her father’s – was at Aintree, in jumping’s most famous race. However, it was the flat that had originally caught her imagination. This was after something of a seminal moment during the Second World War. George VI took his daughter to