The Queen's filly, Estimate, likely to be the star draw at Ascot as Gold Cup winner makes her racing return For the first time in its short history, British Champions Day takes place without Frankel and while Estimate will never quite be in his league - except, perhaps, in the eyes of his owner-breeder - she is a filly to latch on to for the racing first-timers this meeting aims to attract. Explaining her absence since that great day, the Queen's racing adviser John Warren said: "Sir Michael Stoute, being a brilliant trainer, does not run his horses unless they are 100 per cent. He wasn't happy going into Doncaster [in September] but she worked extremely well on Wednesday and looks marvellous. It was always the plan to give her time after the Gold Cup. You can't bounce many horses back quickly after a 2½-mile race like that, especially a filly, and the plan was always to give her a good break then aim her for a couple of specific autumn targets. Recalling the Gold Cup, Warren is still in a certain amount of disbelief. "Even in our wildest dreams we didn't really think it would happen," he said. No reigning monarch had won the race since it was first run in 1807 and we didn't think a filly could beat the colts. It's fair to say the Queen never expects anything so a winner is always a bonus and she never gets disappointed. Of course when it did happen the out-flowing of emotion was very evident. It was a rare day on top of which it was a very exciting race to watch.