Newmarket’s ‘Gold’ autumn season stepped up a gear in style on Saturday with a card containing two Group One two year old races, a Group Two race for the same age group and one of the season’s premier Heritage Handicaps the bet365 Cambridgeshire. All three Group races went abroad, Jessica… Read More »
Sir Michael Stoute’s Crystal Ocean was ranked the world’s best horse on official ratings prior to today’s Juddmonte International at York but he had to settle for second place in the end when narrowly denied in a thrilling fashion by the Aidan O’Brien trained three year old Japan. A strong… Read More »
It was a case of Allez France at Ascot today as Watch Me, trained by Francis Graffard and ridden by Pierre-Charles Boudot, upset the hot favourite Hermosa to land the Group One feature race of the day. Watch Me had been considered an unlucky loser in the Poule d’Essai Du… Read More »
It’s nearly 23 years since Frankie Dettori went through the card at Ascot and recorded his famous ‘Magnificent Seven’ but bookies still haven’t forgotten the bashing they took that day and they were trembling once again as Dettori took the opening four races on Gold Cup day, including the big… Read More »
Sir Michael Stoute has long been revered as a trainer who has no equal at improving older horses. It seems the trainer is himself improving with age and, having ended a long drought in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot last year with Poet’s Word, he didn’t have… Read More »
Three Group One races on the first day of Royal Ascot started the meeting off in style and it was mixed fortunes for backers with Lord Glitters, an outsider, taking the Queen Anne Stakes to get the meeting off to a great start for the bookies. But the punters hit… Read More »
Only three trainers could boast seven Derby winners on their CVs prior to 2019 and all of them hailed from a by-gone age. The three, Robert Robson, John Porter and Fred Darling were joined on that illustrious roll by Aidan O’Brien today as his Anthony Van Dyck, ridden by long… Read More »
It was another day to remember for multiple classic winning jockey Frankie Dettori as he guided John Gosden’s Anapurna to victory in the Oaks at Epsom. While Gosden was winning an impressive 10th classic, Dettori is a more regular visitor to the winner’s enclosure in these most prestigious of races… Read More »
Aidan O’Brien trained both market leaders in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket on Saturday but it was the longer priced of the pair, Magna Grecia, who came home a convincing winner of the season’s first classic. Magna Grecia, a Group 1 winner at two when he won the Vertem Futurity… Read More »
The UK flat turf season may have been overshadowed by the Dubai World Cup but Godolphin made sure they were in the ascendancy at both events by taking the day’s feature race at Doncaster, the Unibet Lincoln Handicap, with the unexposed four year old Auxerre. In the ante-post market for… Read More »
On the week that his full-brother became the highest priced yearling sold at auction anywhere in the world this year, Too Darn Hot surely cemented his position as Europe’s leading two year old of 2018 with a striking display to land the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket. It was… Read More »
The world’s oldest classic, Doncaster’s St Leger, went to Aidan O’Brien for the sixth time as Ryan Moore guided Kew Gardens home, Moore and O’Brien having also teamed up last year to win with Capri. Kew Gardens, a son of Galileo out of Group One winning mare Chelsea Rose, had… Read More »
Trainer John Gosden had never won the Sky Bet Ebor, Europe’s richest flat handicap, but he broke his duck in style when saddling both the first and the second, Muntahaa and Weekender, in the 2018 renewal. Gosden is no stranger to thinking differently and, following a walk of the course… Read More »
Alpha Delphini, an unconsidered outsider, won the big sprint at York’s Ebor meeting when taking the Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes by a nose from the 3 year old filly Mabs Cross, who put up a brave display in second. The seven year old Alpha Delphini was making ‘a dream come true’… Read More »
After yesterday’s magnificent performance at York by Roaring Lion it was the fillies’ turn to light up the Knavesmire today as both Sea Of Class and Lah Ti Dar put themselves right into the firing line for some big end of season targets. The William Haggas trained Sea Of Class… Read More »
Roaring Lion had the large crowd on York’s Knavesmire racecourse purring with satisfaction after this well backed son of US based stallion Kitten’s Joy followed up his Eclipse stakes win with another Group One success in the Juddmonte International. Taking up the running from Godolphin’s Benbatl one and a half… Read More »
There were happy scenes at Haydock Park as the racecourse celebrated the 70th anniversary of Britain’s greatest jockey Lester Piggott’s very first winner. It was on 18th August 1948 that Piggott, then only twelve years old, rode The Chase, trained by his father Keith, to win a selling handicap at… Read More »
The question of just who is Europe’s champion three year old filly was settled in no uncertain terms on Friday at Royal Ascot when the winners of the English, French and Irish 1,000 Guineas met in the Coronation Stakes. Alpha Centauri, the winner in Ireland, was favoured in the betting… Read More »
History was made at Royal Ascot on Wednesday as trainer Sir Michael Stoute won his 76th race at the Royal meeting, beating Sir Henry Cecil’s record, as Poet’s Word won the day’s feature race, the Prince Of Wales Stakes. Before the race all the hype surrounded the hot favourite Cracksman… Read More »
Godolphin have had multiple Group 1 and classic winners around the globe but until today they’d never witnessed those distinctive blue silks cross the line in front of the field in the Derby. Trainer Charlie Appleby put that right for them as the 2,000 Guineas third Masar overturned the Newmarket… Read More »
