King Charles III Kicked Off Royal Ascot 2026 and We’re All Still Waiting for First Pitch

Alright, Emerald City, listen up. Your buddy here, fresh off watching every pitch and every tackle, just got handed the wildest assignment, and let me tell you, it's not about whether Julio's gonna launch another moonshot or if the Kraken can keep that early season surge going. Nope. We're talking royalty. Across the pond. At something called Royal Ascot 2026. My brain is still trying to process why this landed on my desk when the Mariners are out there grinding. Seriously, is it baseball season or not?

Horses, Carriages, and a Whole Lotta Pomp

So, on June 16, Royal Ascot kicked off. And what a scene it sounds like. King Charles III and Queen Camilla rolled up in a royal carriage procession. We’re talking open-Landau spring-and-summer carriages, each powered by a team of four horses, with two postillions. And get this, the 9th Duke of Wellington and the Duchess of Wellington were riding right there with them. Every day this week, at precisely 2 p.m., this royal procession takes the same route around an oval course to the Royal Box entrance. Imagine the kind of precision it takes to pull that off. It’s definitely not the chaotic energy we get before a Seahawks game at Lumen Field, that’s for sure. The whole thing wraps up with a grand finale on Saturday, June 20. I’m just trying to picture a fanfare this elaborate happening before a Sounders match. Wild.

A Two-Century Tradition (That We Don’t Have Time For)

Apparently, this whole carriage procession tradition isn't new. King George IV instituted it way back in 1825. He even had Sir Wi

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lliam Wellesley-Pole design it! This was a short decade after Napoleon got his lasting disempowerment at Waterloo, and George IV was all about public approval. So, he invited the very first Duke of Wellington, who was a super popular field marshal and military architect, to ride with him in that initial Landau. The idea was to show everyone that the war hero and the monarch were totally bound by allegiance to Britain. Fast forward two very full centuries, and on June 16, the 9th Duke of Wellington rode in the lead carriage with King Charles III. It's an unbroken, two-century-old tradition, an invite that stands for the Wellingtons. That’s some serious history, I guess. But honestly, my brain is usually tracking whether our early-season M's have found their rhythm, not dukes from 1825.

Queen Anne’s Vision vs. Our Season

The whole Royal Ascot thing actually goes back even further. Queen Anne, Charles II's niece, opened it in 1711 with just a few races. She was out riding from Windsor one day, saw some heath she owned, and thought, "Hey, this would be a great race course." By 1768, Royal Ascot week was established as a four-day meeting. So yeah, over 300 years of horse racing. That's a lot of history. But when you bleed green and blue like we do, your focus is squarely on the early season form of our teams. We're looking for those signs of greatness, the clutch plays, the early trends that tell us what kind of year it's going to be. So, while King Charles and the Wellingtons are doing their thing across the pond, we’re over here looking forward to every single pitch, every whistle, and every goal from our Seattle squads. Let’s go, Emerald City!

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.