History at Listowel as sitting British monarch wins race in Ireland Racing history was created at Listowel today as King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s Reaching High is believed to be the first winner in Ireland owned by a sitting monarch of the British Royal family, since the founding of the Irish state. Trained by Willie Mullins and out of the late Queen of England’s Ascot Gold Cup winning-mare Estimate, Reaching High today justified odds of 1/4fav when scoring easily, under Paul Townend, in the opening maiden hurdle. Reaching High had previously raced twice in Ireland without winning, and is a rare Royal family-runner to be trained in Ireland. Champion jumps trainer Mullins reports “I had been lucky enough to meet the Queen some years ago and she said she’d love to have a horse in Ireland. She rang up one day to ask would we like to train this horse, we said we would and that was it.” Regarding today’s probable piece of history, Mullins had done some digging, and revealed “we can’t find a horse trained in either Ireland or Britain to have won a race in Ireland, since between the time of the founding of the Irish state in 1922, and until now. “The Queen Mother had an Ulster National-winner trained in England (Laffy, 1962) and another of her horse’s Mascara was trained by John Oxx senior to win at Baldoyle in 1971. However, we couldn’t find a reigning British monarch’s horse to have won in Ireland since Irish independence in 1922, at the very least. “David Summers, who manages the Royal Stud (on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk), is from Wexford and he texted me today with the relevant information. Both he and John Warren (who serves as the official Bloodstock and Racing Advisor to King Charles III and Queen Camilla) couldn’t find any Irish winners in the period since Irish independence.” Regarding plans for Reaching High, Mullins added “I hope the horse goes on to better things and they’re looking forward to having runners in top class jump races.” Previously, King Edward VII recorded royal victories in Ireland during the early part of the 20th century, and was successful in the 1900 Irish Grand National with Ambush II.
