{"id":1032228,"date":"2026-06-17T11:12:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T11:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1032228\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T11:12:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T11:12:25","slug":"king-charles-and-queen-camillas-ascot-dream-dashed-as-reaching-high-loses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1032228\/","title":{"rendered":"King Charles and Queen Camilla’s Ascot dream dashed as Reaching High loses"},"content":{"rendered":"

King Charles and Queen Camilla were at Royal Ascot for the first day of the prestigious meeting, hoping to see their horse Reaching High win the Ascot Stakes, but the 2026 event brought disappointment for the royal pair<\/p>\n

Tony Jones PA Court Correspondent<\/strong><\/p>\n

11:48, 17 Jun 2026<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The King and Queen saw hotly fancied Reaching High defeated at Royal Ascot (Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The King and Queen saw their racing hopes dashed on the opening day of Royal Ascot<\/a> when their horse suffered a heavy defeat on the turf.<\/p>\n

Charles and Camilla looked on from the royal box as the Willie Mullins-trained Reaching High was well beaten in the Ascot Stakes, finishing last, with 25-1 outsider Kizlyar claiming victory as thousands of racegoers roared on their selections. They were accompanied by the Princess Royal and her newly married son Peter Phillips, along with his wife Harriet Sperling, to witness the racing action, with other guests including the Queen’s son Tom Parker Bowles.<\/p>\n

Peter and his wife savoured their first Royal Ascot carriage procession as a royal married couple and appeared thoroughly delighted by their time in the royal box, with the pair spotted sharing a laugh.<\/p>\n

Celebrity racegoers in attendance included Spice Girl Geri Halliwell<\/a> and her husband Christian Horner, TV chef Mary Berry, West End musical impresario Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and American singer Vanessa Williams.<\/p>\n

The couple acknowledged the challenges of securing victory at the world-famous Berkshire meeting in a message published in the official programme.<\/p>\n

“As owner breeders ourselves, we know how hard it is to win races at Royal Ascot and wish our fellow breeders, both at home and abroad, the best of luck in this most fascinating of challenges,” they wrote.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The King and Queen cheer on the horses (Image: WireImage)<\/p>\n

Charles and Camilla inherited the late Queen’s stable of horses and have become keen and passionate racehorse owners, celebrating their maiden Royal Ascot triumph in 2023 when their thoroughbred Desert Hero claimed the King George V Stakes. The Royal party will be hoping for a change of fortune later in the week, with another four horses entered in the prestigious event \u2014 one of the standout highlights of the flat racing calendar.<\/p>\n

However, the King did manage to get his hands on a trophy, stepping up to present the honours in the aptly named King Charles<\/a> II Stakes, which was claimed by Mission Central, trained by Aidan O’Brien.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"King Charles and Queen Camilla were at Royal Ascot for the first day of the prestigious meeting, hoping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1032229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4107],"tags":[38666,2639,161403,24994,288,21031,48890,2640,1071,46788,519,79,16,15,125220],"class_list":["post-1032228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-aidan-obrien","tag-anne","tag-ascot-racecourse","tag-christian-horner","tag-horse-racing","tag-horses","tag-lloyd-webber","tag-princess-royal","tag-racing","tag-royal-ascot","tag-royal-family","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-vanessa-williams"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116765154896204409","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1032228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1032229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1032228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1032228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1032228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}