My old father used to say that he would never go to Royal Ascot because he would not go to a meeting where the people were more interested in looking at each other than they were in looking at the horses. He had to tolerate that when he had runners there, but needs must when the devil drives.
Anne, it has got more "fashion" in the public eye, and certainly more "social" in the Royal Enclosure, than "racing" in recent years, but, at heart, it is still about the horses. Ninety per cent of the women in the Enclosure have no interest in fashion in itself. They just dress to look good. Today was Ladies' Day. I saw far more, to the minute, fashion in the Silver Ring and Tattersall's than I saw in the Enclosure, yet the press would have you believe that the Royal Enclosure is where it's at.