Our favorite visiting Ascot royal has come to the racecourse once again this year: Princess Haya!  Lovely to see you again, dear!

But why so matronly?  Usually Haya's hattery is much more modern than this, sometimes even edging on edgy, if you will.  I think the problem here is the white crown of the hat -- if everything were red, this would fit much better with the Haya-as-'40s-femme-fatale thing we've had going here!

(Also, as always, I love that there is that omnipresent bevy of gray top hats behind this princess.  I really do hope one day that they break out in a song-and-dance routine!)

It really wouldn't be Ascot without Haya, would it?  Here, she's wearing a hat a lot like the one she wore to Epsom Downs for the Derby a few weeks ago.  Don't really hate the hat, even though it's far from her best, but the suit?  She looks like she got caught in front of a can of spray paint!

Someone seriously needs to offer Haya a role as a femme fatale in a '40s detective film.  She is just too gorgeous, and her hat choices are so old Hollywood!

Gosh, I hate when I have to eat my words so soon...

Everything was really coming up roses on the chapeau-front for Haya until this clunker on the last day of the races.  The shape's not bad, but the color combination is terrible -- burnt orange and brown and white?  Sounds like a description of my mom's kitchen circa 1977.

Well, I suppose one miss out of the entire race series isn't that bad.  We'll see you next year, Princess Haya!

This is beautiful, and I especially love the way that Haya wears her hair under the hat.  Take note, British princesses!  You're being upstaged by your guest during this Ascot season...

Check out Princess Haya with her bevy of top-hatted followers!  If she started belting out a show tune, and they started doing a snappy choreographed dance, I'd be not at all surprised (and frankly would be completely delighted).

And her hat is certainly lovely.  There's something rather Scarlett O'Hara about this one, in a good way.  Well done, Your Royal Highness!

Princess Haya is back!  Princess Haya is back!  And I've got to say, she's looking awfully glam:

I really, really like this.  It's so "Old Hollywood star heads down to try her luck at the glittering Monte Carlo casino with Scott Fitzgerald," isn't it?  Even the embellishments that look like chopsticks don't bother me.  I have officially been charmed.

The Dubai invasion continues! But … who died, Princess Haya?

If she had a black dress on, I would seriously think she was heading to a wake. I’m not against black hats for non-funeral occasions, but something about the make of this one really does just make her seem like she’s in mourning. The shape is nice, but why not a bright color? We really liked the red yesterday.

Overall, we give it a pass, but with an asterisk “Kate-Middleton-at-the-Phillips-wedding” warning for mourning on non-mourning occasions.

Hey, Princess Haya read our blog, and she took our advice to heart!

Yep, she and the Sheikh liked it so well yesterday that they came back for more! And Princess Haya’s hat is situated just perfectly on her head. It doesn’t look like it’s suspended in mid-air. And that’s a good thing.

Another princess totally entered the Mad Hattery Stakes today at Ascot! Beware, Bea and Eugenie — you missed this one day at the races, and the competition is storming the castle.

That’s Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein of Jordan, who (according to a quick wiki search) is the daughter of the late King Hussein I of Jordan and his third wife, Queen Alia. Princess Haya is the second wife of the Sheikh of Dubai. She’s an Olympian show jumper, so she obviously gets the equestrian angle, and she’s got a degree from Oxford, so we know she can find her way around the English countryside. Her horse won the Derby Stakes eleven days ago, and we think she had a horse in the race today, too.

She looks really nice, overall, and we don’t really hate the hat. We are a little unsure about the way that she’s wearing it — doesn’t it sort of look like it’s just hovering on top of her hair? It somehow needs to be stuck further down on top of her head. Maybe she’s got a ton of hair piled under that thing, but still, it needs help somehow.