There will be no surprises this week for Henry Dwyer, as preparations have been meticulous. For clarity, though, the Australian trainer is talking about himself rather than Asfoora, the beautiful mare with the lightning speed, who stands beside him.
‘I’d have loved etiquette lessons,’ says Dwyer, the smile on his face giving an immediate indication this story will be worth hearing.
‘I had a chat with the King last year, which was completely unscripted, very unannounced and I was very unaware.’
Dwyer was in the paddock, having just saddled Asfoora before the King Charles III Stakes when he suddenly found himself in the presence of the Monarch.
Custom dictates that a man should remove his top hat when in conversation with the King and call him ‘Your Highness’, but this had not been made clear.
So the pair stood together, with Dwyer explaining to the King the lengths he had gone to to get Asfoora from his stables on the Bellarine Peninsula, in the state of Victoria, to Berkshire — a distance of 13,359 miles, costing in the region of £120,000, all for a race over five furlongs that would be done and dusted within a minute.
Henry Dwyer recalled an unexpected and informal chat with King Charles at Royal Ascot 2024
The Australian trainer forgot to remove his top hat when in conversation with the King and call him ‘Your Highness’
‘I had no idea what to call him but we had a good chat and talked about his time in Australia as a young fellow,’ Dwyer continued.
‘He asked me about the horse and I said, “It’s an amazing experience meeting you, Sir, but I’d love to speak to you again after the race with the trophy”.
‘He said to me, “Let’s see if we can make that happen!”.’
As they spoke, one of Dwyer’s friends whipped out his phone and captured the moment. Not in their wildest dreams could they have envisaged things going any better, as Asfoora burst to the front when 110 yards out and won by a length for jockey Oisin Murphy, scooping £390,093.31 for good measure.
‘Afterwards he had a big smile and he said, “I told you I could make this happen!” and it was
terrific,’ said Dwyer, now beaming, who confirmed he took his hat off on the podium. ‘What an amazing life experience. Racing takes you all round the world and introduces you to so many new people.
‘That’s one of the amazing things about the sport and my job. It’s not all about winning, it’s about competing and meeting new people and I guess the King is not someone I ever expected to meet, but there we are!’
They will meet again this week, with Asfoora back to defend her title in the prestigious Group One event, a jewel in Tuesday’s opening card. No doubt the pair will discuss Reaching High, the King’s heavily fancied runner in the Ascot Stakes later in the day and what a result it would be if both horses obliged.
Asfoora remains in top form this year and Dwyer is hoping to replicate last year’s success
The very fact that Asfoora is here again, though, is remarkable in itself. The world is getting smaller and transporting horses is not as problematic as it once was, but the extent of the operation to get the seven-year-old from Dwyer’s serene base to the biggest meeting in the world was enormous.
It started with a nine-hour, 600-mile drive to Sydney before Asfoora spent the best part of two days up in the air. To see her jig-jogging around at Southgate Stables on Newmarket’s Hamilton Road on Wednesday, her bay coat gleaming, you would think she had been here all year.
‘She had two days off before the flight left, then it was Sydney to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Doha, then Doha to Stansted,’ Dwyer explained. ‘Each leg is obviously long enough itself, with two hours sat on the tarmac in between.
‘Last year we got held up for six hours clearing customs at Heathrow, but thankfully this time we didn’t have that issue. She walked in here with her ears pricked, nice and bright, knowing exactly where she was. She’s just a seasoned traveller now.’
And she is also a seasoned winner, her Ascot success in 2024 one of 10 wins in 24 starts.
Asfoora has been the horse of a lifetime for Dwyer and owner Akram El-Fakhri, who runs a taxi business in Melbourne.
All being well, she will be a fixture in all the big five-furlong races across Europe this summer, daring her team to dream big again. ‘As a trainer, you don’t really get a chance to take it all in,’ said Dwyer, who has ‘a boutique yard’ with 45 horses in his care.
‘Normally you are going day to day, grinding and getting up, going to work and repeating it. To be honest, though, last year probably still hasn’t sunk in. On the plane back on the Sunday after Ascot, I had a chance to go through all the messages and reply to people. I might have watched the replay only three times since and it is still a pinch yourself moment.
‘Now here we are, trying to replicate it. She seems well — let’s see what we can do.’
