King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes underway at Ascot

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Main event gets under way at 3.35pm BST Share your thoughts with Greg via email Welcome to Ascot for one of the grand occasions of the racing year – King George day, featuring the most valuable and prestigious all-aged Group One of the British season. The King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, to give it its full title, is a relative youngster on the Ascot programme, having been first staged in 1951 (all of 144 years after the first Gold Cup in 1807). But it swiftly became a fixture in the top-level racing programme, with the second and third runnings both won by that year’s Derby winner – Tulyar in 1952 and Pinza in 1953 – and many, in fact most, of the true middle-distance greats since then are on the roll of honour. Ribot, Nijinsky, Mill Reef, Brigadier Gerard, Shergar, Dancing Brave, Mtoto … the list goes on and on, and there was, of course, also the Race of the Century when Grundy saw off Bustino after an epic tussle down the straight in 1975. Continue reading...