A Quick Overview

Royal Ascot is the most popular British racecourse and it’s not hard to see why. Its roots go back to the Monarch in 1711, making it a particularly special national event. The idea of a racecourse actually materialised when Queen Anne spotted a beautiful stretch of land near Windsor Castle that she thought would be perfect for horse racing.

Today Royal Ascot welcomes around 300,000 visitors a year, and the strong link to the Monarch has remained until this very day. The Queen makes her arrival in a regal horse carriage before the start of the races. This marks the iconic moment of the Royal Procession, as well as the first time the roars of cheering crowds can be heard from the grandstand. Of course, this upbeat, animated environment continues throughout the day as people place their bets and drown themselves in champagne and fancy cocktails.

Frederick Thomas at Royal Ascot

A day at the races is probably worth saving for if you want to make the most of it. Placing bets can be cheap if you allocate your cash wisely, but let’s face it - Royal Ascot is a bit of a holiday for most, and drinks and food can be extortionately priced (not to mention the cost of finding a suitably dapper outfit!)

So we at Frederick Thomas decided to take a trip to Ascot and immerse ourselves in one of the most anticipated national events of the year. Why? We knew there would be plenty of men dressed in stylish outfits (which is right up our street). We also set ourselves a little project of seeing if people could tell the difference between our modestly priced products and some more expensive, designer counterparts. Of course, filming rowdy men in their element wasn’t without its issues. But we managed to get a few interesting videos to share with you. So without further ado, here are some of the highlights from our eventful day at Royal Ascot.

The Morning: Checking out the talent

The weather didn’t start off great, but it gave us a chance to photograph a few men in suits as we all huddled underneath the bar’s gazebo.

Lunchtime: How not to fold a pocket square...

People love freebies! But it seemed one of our lovely interviewees couldn’t quite figure out how to master the art of the pocket square. Whether that was through lack of knowledge or down to the effects of drinking copious amounts of alcohol...we’re not quite sure. Here’s the footage if you want to make your own mind up about it:

The Afternoon: Failed bets & banter

We’re no experts when it comes to horse racing, so it pretty much was a stab in the dark when it came to putting on our first bet. After asking a few people their thoughts, we started off with Jazzi Top to win. We lost. Our second bet we felt a bit more enthusiastic about. Everyone had their eye on A Shin Hikari so we placed another bet to win. Alas, My Dream Boat stole the limelight, we were 50 quid poorer, and none the wiser about horse racing…

The Early Evening: Who can guess the more expensive tie?

After a quick lunch we got round to asking a few more people whether they could guess the difference between our ties and a designer counterpart. The results were interesting to say the least!

The Highlight of the Day: Meeting a Frederick Thomas fan!

This was a very special moment for the team at Frederick Thomas. We had literally met a hugely valuable customer who couldn’t get enough of our ties. Lloyd mentions two of our designs which are some of our biggest sellers; the lovely skulls tie and t rex tie of course. Here it from the man himself in this quick video:

If you want to see more videos from our day at Royal Ascot, don’t miss our Youtube channel. Were you at Ascot this year? What was your highlight of the day? Share in the comments below!