It’s certainly one way to celebrate a landslide Labour victory! Straight out the gate after Sir Keir Starmer got the keys to Downing Street, the new chatelaine of Number 10, Lady Starmer, celebrated with a day at Sandown Park. The Coral-Eclipse, often considered a highlight of the Flat race season, welcomed the country’s newest First Lady on Saturday, as Lady Victoria Starmer travelled down to from her new Home. In green florals from ME+EM, Lady Starmer was clearly making her allegiances known – she wore the brand as she walked through the famous black door for the first time on Friday, and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is known to be a fan.
No wonder our new government is taking such a shine to the fashion , its founder, Claire Hornby, is married to Johnny Hornby, the man behind Tony Blair’s 2001 election campaign. A new look for new Labour indeed. Amid the kind of monumental change that the Starmers (let alone the country) have experienced this week, it can be important to get perspective, and where better than the Eclipse Stakes, a race older than the Labour party itself? Founded in 1886, the mile-and-a-furlong event was named after Eclipse, the greatest racehorse of the 18th century.
And the Stakes weren’t too shabby either: a £10,000 prize pot donated by Leopold de Rothschild made it the country’s richest race at the time. As the leader of the pack during periods of political turmoil, we might see Lady Starmer turn to the races as a way to unwind quite.
