The British season is the oldest continuous sequence on the international calendar and the one whose dates move least. It runs from the Badminton Horse Trials and the Chelsea Flower Show in May, through the Derby at Epsom, Trooping the Colour and Royal Ascot in June, Wimbledon, Henley and the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July, to the Qatar Goodwood Festival and Cowes Week at the beginning of August, with Glyndebourne open from late May to late August and the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition on the walls from June. Most of it is public and ticketed; several of the best-known days, Trooping the Colour along the Mall and the Henley towpath among them, are free to stand at.
The season is English rather than British for most of its length, concentrated in London and the counties within an hour or two of it: Berkshire for Ascot, Surrey for Epsom, Oxfordshire for Henley, West Sussex for Goodwood and Cowdray, East Sussex for Glyndebourne, the Isle of Wight for Cowes. The Open Championship in mid-July and, in August, the Edinburgh festivals are where it reaches beyond that. Its rhythm is weekly, with Saturday or Sunday finals, and its dress codes are published by each organizer and enforced at the gate.
01Le destinazioni
02Come si muove
May is the prologue. Badminton in the first week and the Royal Windsor Horse Show in the second bring the equestrian world to Gloucestershire and the Castle; Chelsea's five days in the last week of May are the first fixture in London itself, and Glyndebourne opens its season in the same week. Epsom's Derby on the first Saturday of June is the first of the great racing days. Trooping the Colour is the second or third Saturday in June, and Royal Ascot begins the Tuesday after, running five days to the Saturday; the Cartier Queen's Cup final at Smith's Lawn is the following Sunday, so the third and fourth weeks of June are the densest of the whole season. Queen's Club tennis runs the same fortnight; the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition opens; the Serpentine Summer Party falls in late June.
July belongs to Wimbledon and the river. The Championships begin on the last Monday of June or the first of July and run two weeks; Henley's five days end on the first Sunday of July, overlapping Wimbledon's first week, which is why the two are followed by different people. The British Grand Prix at Silverstone is an early-July weekend, the Goodwood Festival of Speed a mid-July one, the Cowdray Gold Cup final a Sunday in the second half of the month, and the Open Championship, on a rotating course in England or Scotland, is the third weekend of July.
August is the coda: the Qatar Goodwood Festival's five days in the last week of July or first of August, then Cowes Week on the Solent in the first or second week, then Edinburgh's festivals for the rest of the month. The Glorious Twelfth was the traditional end, when the season left London for the grouse moors, and the Goodwood Revival in September is the first event of the autumn rather than the last of the summer.
03Gli eventi
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5MayBadmintonMARS Badminton Horse Trials
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18MayLondonRHS Chelsea Flower Show
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13MayWindsorRoyal Windsor Horse Show
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4JunEpsomThe Derby
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12JunLondonTrooping the Colour
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15JunAscotRoyal Ascot
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18MayWindsor Great ParkCartier Queen's Cup
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7JunLondonHSBC Championships
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28Jun
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29JunHenley-on-ThamesHenley Royal Regatta
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20May
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15Jun
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8JulGoodwoodGoodwood Festival of Speed
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2JulSilverstoneBritish Grand Prix
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22Jun
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27JulGoodwoodQatar Goodwood Festival
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31JulCowesCowes Week
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6Aug
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22Jun
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8JunLondonLondon Concours
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24JunLondonTreasure House Fair
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8JulNorth BerwickGenesis Scottish Open
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1SepGoodwoodGoodwood Revival
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15JulrotatingThe Open Championship
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31JulCowes to CherbourgRolex Fastnet Race
04Meteo
English summer weather is the season's running joke and its real risk. May can be cold; Chelsea has been staged in near-frost and in heat. June is usually mild, with long evenings and enough rain that Ascot's racecard advises on it and Wimbledon has roofs on both show courts; the Derby has been run on soft ground more often than not in recent years. July is the warmest month and the most settled, though thunderstorms have stopped play at Wimbledon and washed out Henley afternoons. The Open, on links courses by the sea, is played in whatever the coast provides and is remembered for its wind. Cowes in August is a sailing regatta, so the wind is the point.
05Dove dopo
The British crowd disperses to the Mediterranean in late July, to Scotland for the grouse and the Edinburgh festivals in August, and to the Alps for the music festivals. The English calendar itself picks up again with the Goodwood Revival in September, Frieze London in October and the London auctions between them. The next fixture on the international calendar after Cowes is Monterey Car Week in California in the middle of August, and after that the autumn begins in Venice and New York.