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Princess Zahra Aga Khan made a rare public appearance at Royal Ascot on Thursday. The daughter of the late Aga Khan IV arrived in the third carriage of the Royal Procession alongside Princess Anne’s daughter Zara Tindall; Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani, the deputy emir of Qatar; and Willie Mullins, a champion Irish racehorse trainer.
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This was not Princess Zahra’s first appearance in the procession. Last year, she rode in a carriage alongside Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, and the year before, she was with the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. Her presence at the annual meeting reflects both her longstanding connection to the British racing world and a family legacy that runs deep in the sport.
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Princess Zahra Aga Khan and King Charles at Ascot 2023.
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Princess Zahra Aga Khan at Ascot 2024.
Princess Zahra is the daughter of Princess Salimah Aga Khan and the late Aga Khan IV, who died last year and was one of the most prominent horse owner-breeders in Europe. Like her father before her, she attended the highly-exclusive Le Rosey School in Switzerland, one of the world’s most expensive boarding schools. Zahra went on to earn an undergraduate degree cum laude in development studies from Harvard University. She later completed a program at Massachusetts General Hospital focused on healthcare systems and advanced medical care, as well as an executive finance course at IMD Business School in Lausanne.
Zahra has also inherited her father’s passion for racing in the most tangible way possible: by becoming a successful owner-breeder in her own right. Her horse Daryz won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in October, and her other horse, Calandagan, became the first internationally bred and trained horse in 20 years to win the Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse in November. Daryz finished third during the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Ascot on Wednesday.
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Daryz, ridden by Mickael Barzalona, during the The Prince of Wales’s Stakes on day two of Royal Ascot.
“Racing was my weekend job,” Princess Zahra recently told The Telegraph. “I worked with dad for 30 years. He put me in charge of health and education when I was 30. I asked not to because I was younger than all my colleagues. I said ‘dad, this is so nepotistic I can’t do this!’ and he said ‘no no, you’ve learned enough’ and put me in charge of health and education, planning and building services, disaster mitigation and response, that was what I did.”
Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.