The Queen may have had a less-than-successful Royal Ascot, with none of her horses winning a race, but 400 miles to the north, another of her prized animals took a first-placed ribbon.
Gusgurlach of Balmoral, a three-year-old Scottish Highlander, won the top prize at the Royal Highland Show for the second year in a row.
Gusgurlach is part of the Queen’s herd, which at last count had more than 60 brood cows and seven other bulls.
The Queen has been breeding Scottish Highlanders since 1953 and has repeatedly won awards for the quality of her livestock.
The tradition goes back to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s fascination with the Highlands. It was the 19th-century monarch who established the royal preference for distinctive red cattle, telling her breeders in the 1840s that she preferred the color over black.
While this is Gusgurlach’s second time to win the top prize, it is his first in-person event after last year’s event was held virtually due to the pandemic.
The prize bull was spotted out of a herd of 110 by Dochy Ormiston, the stock manager of the Queen’s Balmoral Estate.
The Queen’s lone runner on Royal Ascot’s final day, King’s Lynn, failed to win the Platinum Jubilee Stakes as a 40/1 outsider.
This made it the second year in a row that the monarch had no winner at the event. Her last successful race was in 2020 when Tactical won the Windsor Castle Stakes.
The Queen was not present at the races this year.