The royal couple also presented the Coronation Cup Trophy to winner of the race on the first day of the Epsom Derby Festival

King Charles and Queen Camilla are off to the races!

The royal couple attended the Epsom Derby Festival at the Epsom Downs Racecourse on May 31 with an eye on one race in particular. Their horse Treasure, bred by the late Queen Elizabeth, competed in the Betfred Oaks.

Unfortunately, Treasure placed 11th out of the 12 horses in the race.

Despite the loss, the King, 75, and Queen, 76, were all smiles during the outing, including when they presented the Coronation Cup Trophy to the winner of the race, British jockey Ryan Moore.

King Charles and Queen Camilla Hit the Racetrack to See Their Horse Bred by Queen Elizabeth Compete

King Charles III and Queen Camilla watch as horse Treasure races in The Oaks during the Derby Festival at Epsom racecourse in Surrey. Picture date: Friday May 31, 2024

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Queen Elizabeth was an avid horse lover as well as a racehorse breeder. When she died in Sept. 2022, King Charles inherited her horses. Although the new monarch sold some of the horses, Tattersall auction house’s spokesman Jimmy George previously told the BBC: “It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Every year they would sell horses. The Queen had brood mares of her own, she would breed them and sell them. You can’t keep them all.”

King Charles had better luck last year at Royal Ascot when their horse Desert Hero won the King George V Stakes. After the race, King Charles and Queen Camilla could be seen celebrating, pointing down at their victorious horse and jockey to their guests in the royal box — after all, the victory came with a $65,650 prize, Sky Sports reported.

The royal couple then collected their prize from a familiar face: Queen Elizabeth’s cousin, the Duke of Kent, who awarded them with a silver trophy to mark the victory.

Zara Tindall, King Charles’ niece, told ITV Racing that the win was “bittersweet.” She said, “To think how proud our grandmother the Queen would have been, but to have a winner for Charles and Camilla and keep the dream alive was incredible.”

King Charles recently resumed a fuller schedule of royal duties, including public outings, after staying largely out of the spotlight amid his cancer treatment, announced in February. 

After spending months working mainly behind the scenes or taking part in small audiences at the palace, the King quipped during a May 9 outing to the Royal School of Military Engineering that he was glad to be “out of my cage.”

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