King Charles continues Queen’s horseracing legacy as he sends four of his mother’s horses to trainer

King Charles looks set to continue the late Queen’s horse-racing legacy as he has sent four of his mother’s horses to a trainer.

The 74-year-old monarch first hired Ralph Beckett, whose premises are based in Andover, Hampshire, in 2008. 

The monarch has asked flat racing expert Mr Beckett to train four juveniles for the upcoming season starting in mid-March, according to the Racing Post.

These include a sister to one of the Queen’s sprinters, King’s Lynn, which took part in the King’s Stand Stakes at Ascot last year and won the Group 2 Temple Stakes. 

The publication reports all four have been bred at the Royal Stud in Sandringham.

The group also includes a half-sister of the Queen’s horse Diploma, who was trained by the late monarch’s long-term employee Sir Michael Stoute. 

In her lifetime, the Queen reportedly split her horses between 11 trainers in the UK.

In 2008, Charles selected Mr Beckett to train the first horse he and Camilla bred.

The trainer told Horse & Hound at the time: ‘It was a bit of a shock to get the phone call from John Warren [The Queen’s bloodstock adviser].

‘When he told me the plan I did a double-take. It’s a real honour and very exciting.’

At the end of last year, King Charles sparked fears he was planning on winding down the royal racing operation when he sold off 14 of his mother’s horses at auction for £1million. 

The King sold more than a third of his mother’s racehorses, which he inherited upon her death in September 2022, at the famous Tattersalls October sales in Newmarket, Suffolk.

A royal source confirmed Charles will reduce the number of horses, but said: ‘The connection between the family and the horse-racing industry will continue. 

The Queen – pictured at Ascot in 2021 – had a lifelong passion for horses and had her first pony from the age of four

Ralph Beckett is reportedly training four of King Charles’ horses – which were bred at Sandringham – ahead of the new flat racing season, which begins next month

‘The desire is to continue with the traditions and connections with Royal Ascot but not on the same scale as Her Majesty because she had a passion.’

The source added that some horses have already been sold as part of the ‘natural churn’ of buying and selling that comes with running the collection.

The Queen usually sold around seven horses a year, so October’s sale represented a big increase.

But, speaking before the auction, Tattersall’s spokesman Jimmy George denied that the sale of 14 horses was anything ‘out of the ordinary’.

He told the BBC: ‘The Queen had brood mares of her own, she would breed them and sell them. You can’t keep them all.’

The Queen had a lifelong passion for horses and was given her first horse – a Shetland pony named Peggy – at the age of four. She attended Ascot races for the final time in 2021.