Racing: Beaumont hands over reins at Ascot: RACING: The royal course marks a changing of the bowler-hatted guard, as its long-serving clerk retires

THERE MAY be a guard of honour at Ascot today formed by figures who appear to be from the Bradford & Bingley Building Society.

The man who will emerge from underneath the rolled-up umbrellas is Captain, the Hon Sir Nicholas Beaumont KCVO, DL, Nicky to his friends, who this afternoon retires as clerk of the course after more than 30 years as an official at the Berkshire track.

When Beaumont started as an assistant clerk at Ascot, a useful Irish horse called Arkle was running around the course. Since 1969, he has been clerk of the course, in charge of Ascot's Royal meeting and one of the forces behind the Festival Of British Racing which was launched in 1987 as a version, albeit a diluted one, of America's Breeders' Cup series.

His scrapbook, therefore, is a chunky tome, though Beaumont veers towards the elementary when he outlines his fondest moments. 'The peaks for me have been just having a really good day's racing,' he said yesterday. 'The thing one is most proud of is that the racing has been kept to a high standard.

'I've been bitten by the Ascot bug, which you've either got or you haven't' Beaumont has recently been nibbled by another insect, one from the North-East, and he moves on from the royal course to become racing director at Newcastle.

One controversy he will not be sorry to leave behind is that of the course's bowler- hatted and sometimes belligerent gatemen. They were there long before Beaumont arrived, but have been seen increasingly as an officious body out of touch with the new breed of racegoer.

'I've always been very sad about that,' Beaumont said. 'If you've got nearly 1,000 gatemen, you're always going to get someone who's had a bad morning, but I've been very happy in general. If you've wanted to know something about the place you've always been able to ask the man with a bowler hat.

'Maybe if someone comes in with a mackintosh on and their badge hidden away, sometimes a confrontation has developed. I think there have been faults on both sides.'

Throughout his time, Beaumont would have been better served by better coverage than that provided by the BBC. The corporation again displays its affection for the sport today, when it screens the first three races, missing out perhaps the highlight of the day, the Cornwallis Stakes.

The trainers trying to establish a two-year-old in this Group Three event may not want to consider the fate of Alf Smith, who formerly prepared Cape Merino, a runner in today's Bovis Handicap.

Twelve months ago, Smith, who trains a small string near Beverley, sent out the filly to win the fabulously remunerative bonus race for juveniles at Redcar. Two runs on, she is no longer in his string.

Such travails are unlikely to touch Aidan O'Brien. The young Irish trainer, who this week bought a yearling for IR275,000gns at the Goffs Sales on behalf of the Coolmore Stud, is soon expected to further forge links with that organisation by establishing a team of two-year- olds at the Ballydoyle yard of one of the stud's founders, the recently retired Vincent O'Brien.