Royal Ascot Set To Win Back Confidence In Racing

This year's showpiece event aims to leave the sport's recent doping scandals behind and win back the confidence of punters.

为期一周的英国皇家爱斯科赛马会开幕，吸引了来自世界各地的人前来观看。英国女王等王室重要成员是皇家赛马会的常客，其它社会名流也趋之若鹜。人们头戴造型独特的帽子，成为一道亮丽的风景线。

皇家爱斯科赛马会由安妮女王于1711年建立，它是欧洲最为著名的赛马会，也是英国社交日历上最为重要的一场活动，参与者的着装也是各大媒体争相报道的重点话题。

Best horses from around the world in final preparation for the most prestigious meeting of all -- Royal Ascot. It comes after a scandal this spring that saw leading trainer Mahmood Al Zarooni banned for injecting horses with anabolic steroids. Performance enhancing drugs are illegal in British racing. But in some countries sending runners to Ascot, substances like the anti-bleeding agent LASIKS are a fact of life.If we didn't use LASIKS, it will be like Usain Bolt putting the starting blocks five metres behind the other guys. You know, I'm not prepared to do that. I'm fighting as hard as anybody in America. The change is the rules.

I should be able to go racing in any country and know that not any of the rules in terms of medication, even your objections, you know, for interference. The rule should be standing out, in my opinion, throughout the world.

Britain's leading Acorn VETS is the benefits the drugs are clear. It can never be justified.

They increase aggression. You could argue that they will make a horse keener to race, keener to run. Um, and if they enable it to work harder during training, which they probably do, then you can get it fitter during the training period. I think you have to be pretty a callous sort of person to be prepared to expose your horse to unnecessary risk for your own ends.

The modern Royal Ascot is an international meeting with runners from countries with much more liberal rules on the use of drugs. Despite this, the authorities here believe the public can have confidence in every horse that passes the winning post.

Each horse that travels has to send in advance to the British Horse Racing Authority a schedule of what treatment that horse might have received in the previous, quite a long time, time before it comes. And then when the horse arrives, they are tested by the British Horse Racing Authority there.

So as the attention turns from scandal to runners and riders, British racing is hoping a week of clean sport, though it may take longer to wash away the troubles of recent months.

Paul Kalsol, Sky News.