****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Queen Elizabeth II knows far more about horse racing than most people on Planet Earth, yet she has not achieved a level of success in the sport commensurate with her knowledge and enthusiasm. This is partly due to being careful with her money (quite rightly so, as there would be a public outcry if she were perceived to be squandering it), partly due to bad decisions by some of her advisors and partly due to bad luck. This book makes clear how each of these elements have hampered her ambitions as a racehorse owner and breeder.The book itself is well-illustrated with an index at the back. It covers all the main points, but sometimes repeats itself a little too much. The story concerning Height of Fashion is interesting, but how many times does it need to be re-referenced? I understand that some of it may be desirable, but I'm not convinced that we need reminding of it quite as often as the author does, The author does not go for comprehensive coverage, but focuses mostly on the Queen's successes in the fifties (notably Aureole, Carozza and Pall Mall) and seventies (notably Highclere and Dunfermline), together with Carlton House, who was third in the 2011 Derby. It is worth noting that Carlton House came closer to winning the Derby in finishing third than Aureole did in finishing second. As Carlton House is still in training even as I write this review (he won on his seasonal debut in 2012 in Derby week), his story is yet to be completed, which still gives him a chance to win the really big race, at least in theory. With Frankel a possible rival over distances up to a mile and a quarter and Camelot a possible rival at a mile and a half, it won't be easy to find the right races for Carlton House.The author covers many aspects of racing and racehorse breeding, including the negative impact of the Irish troubles that put Irish stallions out of bounds to royal mares long before the kidnapping of Shergar provided tragic justification for the policy. Nevertheless, the policy caused a weakening of the royal bloodlines as Irish stallions became far more important than their British-based rivals. Increasing international competition had caused Britain's National Stud to change its strategy in the sixties to focus on hosting stallions, Before that change, several generations of royal owners had leased horses from the National Stud to race, particularly in periods when their own stud wasn't producing enough quality. In the fifties, some but not all of the royal successes had been leased horses, as had Minoru (the 1909 Derby winner for King Edward VII), and King George VI's wartime classic winners, Big Game and Sun Chariot. When the National Stud decided to focus on stallions, new alternatives were sought and found including exchange deals.This is not the definitive book about the Queen's horses, as many are not mentioned at all. While I wouldn't expect every failure to get a mention, I would like to have seen a list of every horse she owned who was at least a good handicapper, with their achievements. Also, given that breeding is so important to this book, it would have been nice to see (perhaps) a Feola family tree, to illustrate her influence more clearly than piecing together the information scattered through the text. With such additions and less repetition as mentioned earlier, this book would have been fantastic, but even as it is, there is much to commend this book to fans horse racing
