British fans show their love for royalty and horses

A good brolly is a much-needed accessory in London as I discovered after nearly 10 days without any mishap. But the famous weather finally caught up with me and I returned to my hotel drenched to the skin. With laundry costs exorbitant, I wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper to buy a new T-shirt and trousers rather than pay GBP4 (HK$48) and GBP8.80 for each item respectively, every time you send your clothes to the hotel cleaners. And that's without the dreaded VAT.

Thankfully the rain kept away while I was at Greenwich Park, seated about 20 rows behind Kate, William and Harry - the royals who are attracting even more media attention than the athletes themselves. The only time the paparazzi move their lenses away from Kate and company is when Zara Phillips rides into the show-jumping arena. But she too is a royal, even if she is 14th in line to the throne.

The British are enthralled by royalty. So it is no surprise then that a sport which is closely linked to blue-blood aristocracy should draw massive crowds who had flocked to London's largest and loveliest park, covering a full 73 hectares and is partly the work of the same man who landscaped the famous palace garden of Versailles for Louis XIV.

During the 'Ancien Regime', European royal bloodlines mingled, and they being all but incestuous, I suppose it didn't bother them to share a gardener or two. And their love for horses was the stuff of legend, no wonder they still call racing the sport of kings.

Queen Elizabeth herself is an ardent horse-lover. Horses are so much part of her life and this has distilled down to the common man. From Royal Ascot to Trooping the Colour to polo, it's horses, horses everywhere. And being a symbol of royal prestige, equestrianism has been a mainstay of British aristocracy for centuries.

So much so that Time magazine in a recent issue to herald the queen's Jubilee remarked: 'It [equestrianism] shapes their dress, their pastimes, and even, some would say, their looks. (Hence the stereotypical 'horsey' posh girl: big-nosed and toothy.)'

The Olympics and the British royal family also have close links. Mark Phillips, once the husband of Princess Anne, won a gold medal for Britain in eventing at the 1972 Munich Games. Princess Anne, too, was an ardent eventer and tried her hand four years later at the Montreal Games but came home empty-handed. Their daughter Zara Phillips, the queen's granddaughter, joined the Olympic honours list when she won a silver in the eventing team category.