King Charles is not horse-obsessed like his mother. Charles only has eyes for one horse, iykyk. Queen Elizabeth II was extremely involved with her racehorses, developing a breeding program and a keen eye for which horses would do the best in the races. When QEII died, Charles reportedly wanted to be done with all of her horses – he wanted to sell off the whole operation and not spend the money on his mother’s passion project any longer. He couldn’t even conceive of simply handing off the whole thing to his wife or his sister, both of whom are just as horse-obsessed as QEII. Someone finally got through to him and he didn’t end up selling off the whole operation, although he did sell at least fourteen prized racehorses. On Friday, Charles and Camilla made a surprise appearance at the Epsom Derby, specifically to watch one of QEII’s horses compete. The horse came in LAST!! Oh noes. Charles sold the wrong horses.

The King and Queen watched as their horse came last at Epsom on Ladies’ Day.

King Charles and Queen Camilla had to watch the late Queen Elizabeth’s thoroughbred Treasure finish at the back of the pack in the Oaks at Epsom on Friday.

Despite odds of 16-1 Treasure, who was bred by the King’s mother, lost out to the Aga Khan’s horse Ezeliya.

The King watched through binoculars after emerging on the grandstand moments before the race began. He and the Queen had walked around the parade ring ahead of the race to speak to Treasure’s jockey James Doyle, trainer Ralph Beckett and royal racing advisor John Warren.

[From Sky News]

What’s funny is that I remember the last few years of QEII’s life, when she was getting around okay, she would always make time for the races and several of her horses ended up winning some big titles. One could argue that her decades-long stable project was finally paying dividends. That’s over now! I get the feeling that Charles just sold off horses willy-nilly and he let Camilla take over everything else. Poor Treasure, that poor horse is probably headed to the glue factory.

Also: it’s still so funny that Buckingham Palace made this big deal about how they were canceling events during the election cycle, and now it just looks like Charles and Camilla have the newfound time to make surprise appearances at the races. It was apolitical, I guess. And another thing… I hate how much I love Camilla’s hat. It’s snazzy as f–k.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.