Yesterday morning James
Doyle was little-known outside racing's corridors, but today he is a national
sporting hero, if column inches in newspapers are a guide.
The jockey's treble at
Royal Ascot day two elevates him alongside winning England cricket captain
Alastair Cook as someone worthy of deification, although Daily Mirror
reporter David Yates reveals Doyle was 'the jockey who almost quit to become a
plumber'. Claude Duval in the Sun writes: "Baby-faced James Doyle
became James the First, the Second and the Third at Royal Ascot
yesterday."
The jockey is simply
'Royal Doyle' in the Daily Star, while the Daily Express and Racing
Post rebrands the meeting 'Doyle Ascot'. The 25-year-old jockey tells the Daily
Mail's Marcus Townend and The Independent's Chris McGrath: "All
of those mornings and all of the hard work you put in does pay off."
McGrath ponders the
importance of Al Kazeem, the horse that ignited Doyle's treble by winning the
Prince of Wales's Stakes. He may have a name from the East, but he is British
to his core, and, given the dominance of Irish stables at the meeting, a
reminder that home-trained horses can deliver.
The Sun, which anoints
Doyle as 'King James' on the front of its racing pullout, reveals Investec
Derby runner-up Libertarian has been sold to Godolphin and will leave Elaine
Burke's yard after the Irish Derby, and while the Racing Post also
carries the story it reveals another, centring on a split between Hayley Turner
and trainer Michael Bell.
Perhaps it is the season
for separations, for The Times' Alan Lee quotes Luca Cumani saying of
Kieren Fallon, 'some of my owners no longer want to use him'.
They say every picture
tells a story, but, like statistics, it depends how they are used. A shot in The
Sun of a straight-faced Queen and grumpy-looking Camilla, Duchess of
Cornwall, standing side by side in coats of matching colour, enables the paper
to add in a cartoon thought bubble in which each woman is apparently saying to
themselves, 'She said she wasn't wearing green'.
The Daily Mirror
picks up on the theme when placing a photo of the two women smiling in the
Royal carriage. 'Green Elizabeth II' is the headline, while 'Racing green' is The
Daily Telegraph's view above a large front-page photo of the Queen, Camilla
and Prince Charles. The Daily Mail refers to the 'Ascot fashion police'
while reporting on the laments of a handful who arrived unsuitably attired for
the Royal Enclosure, but that was not a problem for 'Russian-born designer
Larisa Katz', who, The Independent informs, wore an outfit made from
chocolate packaging. It is just as well temperatures yesterday were warm, not
scorching.
Celebrity snappers are
never short of subjects at Royal Ascot, and Masterchef host Gregg Wallace
appears in the Daily Star - the paper says he was not a good judge of
horses, and tweeted, 'I've come away with a small fortune - went with a big
one'.
Looking ahead to today's
action, the Daily Mirror makes gold standout on the front of its racing
pullout. A large headline in that colour declares, 'We will Rock you' adding
'Saddler's to be a Gold Cup hit'. Jamie Spencer, who rides Vadamar in the day's
feature race and pens a column in the Daily Star, suggests The Queen's
runner Estimate will win, and the Racing Post alludes to that outcome
with a front-page montage of Her Majesty alongside her filly and the headline
'Happy and glorious', which is joined by 'Ascot braced for joy unconfined'.
'All aboard Last Train in
Gold Cup' is The Times' headline above Rob Wright's tipping column,
while J A McGrath tells The Daily Telegraph's readers, 'Simenon to
strike for Irish in Gold Cup'.
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