Royal Ascot’s Ladies Day is famed across the world for its high fashion and fabulous millinery, and for royal watchers it is a chance to spot what colourful creation the Queen will choose as she lets her hair down and enjoys the races.
The monarch’s colourful array of outfits is always a talking point, and to get into the spirit of the races bookmakers Coral have laid on odds of the colour of her hat on Thursday’s Ladies' Day (June 20th).
Based on their research into her sartorial style over the last five years of Royal Ascot, Coral is giving 3/1 odds that her hat will be a suitably royal blue, with summery yellow and apricot colours not far behind. Dark and metallic colours like black (40/1), grey (50/1) and gold (50/1) have been given particularly low odds, with white and pink fairly middling despite being her second and third most worn shades over the last few years.
Despite three of her horses racing on the day (Sea Shanty in the Britannia Stakes, Estimate in the Gold Cup and Bold Sniper in the King George V stakes), odds are fairly low that the Queen will choose her jockeys’ royal colours of purple (7/1), scarlet (25/1) and gold. Yet, though the Queen’s colours may not tell us for which horse she is cheering, Coral’s poll reveals that 18 per cent of women pick their horse on the colour of the jockey’s silks, though 36 per cent pick based on the horse’s name. Luck still proves an important factor, with some women opting for lucky jewellery, colour or even underwear on race day, while 16 per cent place a bet on the advice of a horoscope.
