{"id":343525,"date":"2025-08-14T09:41:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343525\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T09:41:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:41:16","slug":"king-charles-forgave-me-for-what-i-did-but-queen-camilla-didnt-feel-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343525\/","title":{"rendered":"‘King Charles forgave me for what I did but Queen Camilla didn’t feel the same’"},"content":{"rendered":"

BBC and ITV racing pundit Derek Thompson has shared the amazing story of the time he beat King Charles on a horse race\"KingKing Charles III was beaten in a horse race by Derek Thompson(Image: undefined via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Renowned BBC and ITV racing commentator Derek Thompson has revealed a charming story from a 1980 horse race where he defeated King Charles III <\/a>– with Queen Camilla jokingly still bearing a grudge over the result.<\/p>\n

King Charles, who had a brief stint as an amateur jockey approximately 45 years ago, competed in six races, including an appearance at the Cheltenham Festival shortly before his engagement to Princess Diana. Although he never secured first place, he achieved second position twice \u2013 including his debut race at Plumpton during a charity flat race in 1980.<\/p>\n

Thompson, a cherished figure within racing communities, went toe-to-toe with the then-Prince on that occasion, racing to triumph ahead of Charles’ mount, the favoured Long Wharf. While the duo have amicably resolved any competitive tension since that day, Queen Camilla teasingly insists she has not yet pardoned Thompson’s victory.<\/p>\n

\"PrincePrince Charles tried his hand at racing many moons ago(Image: PA Archive\/PA Images)<\/p>\n

Speaking to Freebets.com before Cheltenham earlier this year, Thompson said: “I beat the future King, and I remember at Royal Ascot last year, we were having a chat, and I said, ‘Sorry, Sir. I beat you all those years ago.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry. I forgave you. Don’t worry.'”.<\/p>\n

“His wife, the Queen, then said, ‘But I haven’t Tommo!’ We always joke about it, but it was an incredible day. I’ll never forget it.”, reports OK!, reports OK!<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thompson remembers the race with tremendous affection, confessing even before the starting pistol fired, he felt certain his horse – coached by future six-time champion National Hunt trainer Nicky Henderson – possessed a real chance of victory, according to Aberdeen Live.<\/p>\n

He said: “It was a charity race. I rode a horse for Nicky Henderson. He used to drive down from London three times a week at five o’clock. I got there and rode him out. It was a horse called Classified who hadn’t run before.<\/p>\n

\"TelevisionDerek Thompson beat King Charles III in a horse race(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“But he was trained by Nicky Henderson. He wasn’t the champion trainer then because it was forty years ago. He’d just started out. I remember on the Sunday before the Tuesday, we’d gone for a gallop, three of us \u2013 I was riding Classified.<\/p>\n

“Nicky was on another horse, and the stable jockey Steve Smith Eccles<\/a> was on another horse. And we did a mile gallop on the hills at Lambourn, and nobody else saw it. And I won the gallop by about 20 lengths. I wasn’t showing off or anything, just won it.<\/p>\n

“Steve said next to me, ‘What the blinking heck is that, Tommo?’ I said, ‘He’s called Classified \u2013 has never run before.’ He said, ‘Well, you’ve just beat me 20 lengths. Giving me two stone. The horse I rode won a handicap over at Newbury under 12st 7lbs last week. You’ve just annihilated me. You must be on the biggest certainty of all time.'”. “Apparently, all the stable staff at Nicky’s backed me at 16-1 \u2013 if I hadn’t won, I’d have been dead half an hour later,” he quipped, adding: “So it was incredible.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BBC and ITV racing pundit Derek Thompson has shared the amazing story of the time he beat King…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,7730,7731,1760,2607,7710,519],"class_list":{"0":"post-343525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-charles","10":"tag-charles-iii","11":"tag-king-charles","12":"tag-queen-camilla","13":"tag-royal-families","14":"tag-royal-family"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115026466584655707","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343525","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=343525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}