Horse Racing: The Elusive Mr Magnier Strikes Gold But is Content to Remain Just a Face in Ladies' Day Crowd

"We were lucky," was pretty well all John Magnier said after winning the big one yesterday. "Hardly lucky," I ventured. "Many people expected Yeats to win the Gold Cup today." "Ah yes," he countered, with a quizzical smile. "But what is expected and what actually happens are two different things." He added, rather enigmatically: "We are lucky to be here, aren't we?"

And then he hurried on to a gliding escalator on which this reporter, scruffily attired in a dark Italian lounge suit and silk tie, was not qualified to travel.

As interviews go it was hardly the most penetrating but it clearly impressed one onlooker. "You did well there - he hates the press, you know."

"Pathological hatred, I've heard", said a grey top hat. "He's a bit like Howard Hughes, you know."

As he made his way from the parade ring to his suite on Level 2 of the new grandstand, very few among the Mad Hatters would have recognized the owner of Coolmore, the most powerful man in the bloodstock world.

Burlington Bertie darted past. And Lady Burlington Bertie, of course, for yesterday was Ladies' Day. Many men wore waistcoats and cravats that roared and exploded with every hue - poor form this, for on Ladies' Day the men are not supposed to compete.

Sartorially, at least, Mr Magnier, 59, was not competing. Grey locks teemed from his black topper and a red carnation, sprouting from his buttonhole, was his only extravagance.

At Ascot, the elite have boxes. The very elite, and they can be counted on the fingers of one hand, have suites, twice the size of the boxes. There is one for Godolphin, one for the Royals and the Royal Ascot Racing Club occupy another. Then there's Coolmore.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you which one is his," said a young man with ASCOT emblazoned on his heart and the horrified expression of the molested. The food looked good, though.

Sodexho does the catering, just as it does for the nearby Parade Ring Restaurant, where you can start with the warm salad of wood pigeon, with smoked bodin noir and apple potato cake, unless you prefer the poached Canadian lobster with mango chilli and crab tian, and follow it with roast sea bass and lobster - or the slow-roast rump of lamb with honey mustard pistachio crust.

This is where Magnier and co base themselves when they are not in the parade ring or at another presentation for winning connections. In the parade ring he and his entourage, including the trainer Aidan O'Brien, huddled like mourners before the 4.20. There was no sign from the group that Yeats, owned by Mrs John Magnier - the daughter of legendary trainer Vincent O'Brien - and Mrs David Nagle, had again won the biggest race in the world's finest example of a Flat meeting.

If you do not follow racing all that closely, you may remember Magnier best for his unseemly skirmish with Sir Alex Ferguson over the stud rights to the horse Rock Of Gibraltar. Ferguson came second.

If you do follow racing, you will know that Magnier, Robert Sangster, Tim Vigors and Vincent O'Brien, the legendary trainer, got together when the bloodstock market took off in the 1970s and 80s. When it came to breeding, buying and racing bloodstock, few could rival Magnier. His fortune was estimated this year at £723m but some have said he is a billionaire.

Vigors died and O'Brien retired but Michael Tabor, who made his fortune with the Arthur Prince bookmaking firm, joined Magnier. Tabor, who sold the company for £28m in 1995 and is now based in Monaco, has a fortune estimated at £620m.

The Coolmore set seemed unnoticed in this My Fair Lady film-set of a racecourse as the crowds came back to Ascot - after shocking attendances on the first two days, this was Lord Snooty's last stand.

And in their midst, the secretive Mr Magnier passed untroubled. He likes it that way.

Ron Cox's tip of the day


Veracity 4.55 Royal Ascot

Michael Jarvis had to settle for second place here last year when Galient chased home Soapy Danger, who came across his rival and had to survive a stewards' enquiry. Veracity is a similar type to last year's runner-up, having won a maiden and then a 1.5m Newmarket handicap. He is expected to show improvement over this two-mile trip and his stable could hardly be in better form.