Talking Horses: a fully open Royal Ascot returns but will the crowds?


The Queen may not make it and the cost-of-living crisis could keep others away as meeting makes tweaks to boost betting

It will be a case of something old, something new when an unrestricted crowd returns to Royal Ascot on Tuesday, 1,088 days after Cleonte and Silvestre de Sousa eased to a comfortable success in the Queen Alexandra Stakes on the last day of the meeting in 2019.

No one could have imagined at the time that it would be the last race in front of a packed grandstand at the Royal meeting for three long years, and the returning fans and fashionistas will find much that is reassuringly familiar.

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