There were “no incidents of any significance” on the first day of Royal Ascot, where heightened security measures were in place to prevent any repeat of the drunken violence that marred a meeting at the same course in May.
The procedures included extensive use of sniffer dogs both at the racecourse entrance and throughout the enclosures to target racegoers in possession of illegal drugs.
Extra security personnel were also on duty at the course and the track reserved the right to breath-test spectators on arrival if it was believed that they had already been drinking to excess.
“There have been no incidents today of sufficient significance to be passed up the line,” Nick Smith, Ascot’s director of racing and communications, said. “Nobody was breath-tested as there was not felt to be any need, but the equipment will remain in place.”
Ascot felt obliged to increase what were already the most significant security procedures at any British race meeting following two serious incidents of disorder at major Saturday race meetings this year.
A brawl involving up to 50 individuals at Goodwood racecourse in early May was followed by another incident at Ascot a week later when two groups of men were involved in fighting inside the grandstand at the end of the day’s racing. Smartphone footage of both incidents was widely circulated on social media.The attendance at the Berkshire track on Tuesday was 46,773, an increase of 2,488, or 5.6pc, on the total of 44,285 who were at the course on the same afternoon in 2017
Willie Mullins is well known for breaking records over jumps at the Cheltenham Festival in March, but he left Ascot with a notable achievement on the Flat on Tuesday evening having saddled four of the first five runners home in the two-and-a-half mile Ascot Stakes Handicap.
Lagostovegas, who overhauled Karen McLintock’s Dubawi Fifty inside the final furlong, was Mullins’s fourth winner in the race, and his stable companions Stratum, Chelkar and Whisky Sour finished third, fourth and fifth respectively.
Mullins will now turn his attention to the Queen Alexandra Stakes on Saturday, a race he has won twice in the last six years.
“I thought this mare might struggle to get the trip,” Mullins said of Lagostovegas. “It didn’t look a very strong gallop and that played into her hands.
“This race and the Queen Alexandra on Saturday are the two races we have horses qualified to run in, so it’s nice to be able to target a few horses. It keeps us busy during the summer and if any of these keep progressing, we’ll target them at the big summer races like the Ebor [at York in August].”
John Gosden, who along with jockey Frankie Dettori completed a treble on the opening day, are now odds-on to finish the week as the leading trainer and jockey respectively. Gosden is 4-7 to beat Aidan O’Brien to the prize, while O’Brien, the winner seven times since 2007, is a 2-1 chance.