Royal Ascot Meet Tuesday to Friday: Queen Will Begin Each Days Proceedings; Never Say Die to Face Arabian Night Again, Daily Racing Form, 1954-06-14

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: . t Royal Ascot Meet Tuesday to Friday Queen Wilt Begin Each Days Proceedings; Never Say Die To Face Arabian Night Again By VERNON MORGAN Reuters Sports Editor LONDON, England, June 12. For four days next week, Tuesday to Friday, high society and the racing world will be at beautiful Royal Ascot to watch the finest thoroughbreds in Europe do battle. The Queen will be there every day, driving down the lovely green course in state to begin the days proceedings. Racegoers are hoping that the weather clerk will be kind and bring hot, sunny weather instead of the cold and wet he brought over White-sun. The French, encouraged by the success of Sun Cap in the Oaks, will throw out a challenge which they sincerely hope will prove stronger than in the last two lean years. The United States will not, unfortunately, be represented by their wonder horse Native Dancer, but the American-bred Derby winner, Never Say Die, will run in the colors of Robert Sterling Clark. He probably will contest the King Edward VH. Stakes on Thursday, in which the Derby runner-up, Arabian Night, will try to reverse the Epsom placings over this straight mile and a half course. The connections of the Newmarket-trained Arabian Night are hopeful of sweet revenge. Little is at present known of the Irish challenge, but they will probably bid for some of the very valuable Ascot prizes. Gold Cup on Thursday The tidbit of the meeting is, of course, the Gold Cup, run over two and a half miles on Thursday. There should be a great Anglo-French duel in this near-classic-distance event, for six of the 13 final acceptors are French. Among the outstanding probables are the English St. Leger winner, Premonition, who is almost certain to start favorite; last years Gold Cup winner, Souepi, who bids to join the select band who have won the coveted cup in successive years, and Blarney Stone, runner-up in the Rosebery Memorial Handicap. The French challengers include Elpenor, Talma, Silex, Le Bourgeois and Northern Light. It was thought that Premonition was a "good thing," .but he rather blotted his copybook in the Winston Churchill Stakes a week ago when he was all out to beat his stable companion, Osborne, in a photo finish. There is not the optimism over his success there was before that race, though he is expected again to account for Northern Light, whom he beat in the St. Leger. Souepi, who will be ridden by Sir Gordon Richards if the champion English jockey is fit enough to ride, is such an honest, plucky horse that he might do it again, though Charlie Elliott, who rode such a superb race on him in last years race and now trains the French textile magnate Marcel Boussacs Elpenor, says he will beat Souepi on Thursday. Elpenor appears to be the chief hope of the Boussac stable, though Talma won the British St. Leger two years ago. Silex may be the main French danger. The French horse, Aram, who was second to. Souepi last year, is coming over-again, but the Queen Alexandra Stakes, the longest flat race in the calendar and sometimes known as the Brown Jack Stakes because of the number of times the famous English horse won the race, is his objective this time.


Persistent Link: https://drf.uky.edu/catalog/1950s/drf1954061401/drf1954061401_8_2
Local Identifier: drf1954061401_8_2
Library of Congress Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/unk82075800