Royal Ascot triumph: Johnny Murtagh is the best trainer riding

Ginger Rogers, clever girl, did everything that Fred Astaire did — but she did it backwards. I am looking backwards in this Turf column and doing so without apologies because it was such a wonderful Ascot. The sheer delight on the Queen’s face when Estimate made her the first reigning monarch to have a winner of the Gold Cup would have made the meeting on its own. But emotions were high, too, when we had two winners from the late Sir Henry Cecil’s yard, now presided over by Lady Cecil, although triumph became tragedy when one of them,  Thomas Chippendale, collapsed and died after the finishing post.

We had the milers’ race of the year, which we had been denied in the 2,000 Guineas, with Dawn Approach recovering from his Derby flop and holding off Toronado by a head in the St James’s Palace Stakes. Punters should never ignore a change of mind from Jim Bolger.