An eyeful at Ascot

by ROBERT HARDMAN, Daily Mail

In all the years of brazen showing off for which Royal Ascot is so justly famous, no one can have wandered through the paddock wearing quite so little.

Sales manager Charlie McEntee, 31, who paid £1,100 for her flesh-coloured, see-through lace number, declared she was 'feeling much cooler than a lot of other people'.

To see our great pictures from the first day at Ascot, click on the link in the box below.

Miss McEntee was not the only exhibitionist yesterday among a record first-day crowd of 51,000.

There were pierced navels, hats the size of trees and visitors more suitably attired for a day at the beach than a date with the monarch.

And Zara Phillips was doing a pretty good job of upstaging her own family - including a host of European royals who have been taking part in Jubilee celebrations at Windsor Castle.

The royal carriage list read more like a Coronation procession than a trip to the races. And just as the crowned heads of Europe were making their way up to the Royal Box, the battery of camera lenses suddenly swivelled away and focused on a large purple feather in Miss Phillips' hat.

It was quite obvious that the Princess Royal's daughter - who had not been part of the royal procession - had no intention of blending in with the crowd.

Her tight-fitting, lilac Elspeth Gibson hipster skirt, purple retro hat and high-heeled satin Christian Louboutin shoes must have been the raunchiest outfit ever to appear on a member of the Royal Family at Royal Ascot.

But it was not all her own work. Miss Phillips, 21, who arrived with her jockey boyfriend Richard Johnson, has acquired that celebrity essential - a personal stylist.

'Zara wanted a new look and I do think she looks funky today,' explained a proud Ceril Campbell. 'She is wearing very high heels, though, and I was afraid she might sink into the grass.'

Although the blazing sun made the going good to firm for most people, Miss Phillips did, indeed, end up perforating the odd patch of grass as she tottered through the throng to meet her mother, who looked rather more elegant in a peppermint number.

One colour was clearly out of bounds. If anyone was going to wear gold, it should be the Jubilee girl and the Queen duly arrived with a gleaming yellow band on her hat.

Come the build-up to the big race, the St James's Palace Stakes, a huge crowd had surrounded the parade ring to view the exotica on display.

Quite apart from the horseflesh on view, there was the bumper crop of royalty, plus Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood and Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

The knife-edge finish to South Korea's World Cup tie against Italy meant that hundreds of punters ignored the first race to cram around the handful of television screens tuned to soccer instead of horses.

For those in the football-free Royal Enclosure, it meant decamping to the notably rowdier Grandstand enclosure, from where a huge roar alerted everyone to the shock result.

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