As Royal Ascot looms, writes Tony Stafford, what could be better for the boys from Coolmore Stud as they ponder their prospects across another important week than that a brilliant dual Classic winner comes along to advertise their operation? When the horse in question, by their UK and Irish 2,000 Guineas winner Churchill, is owned […]
What happens when a self-confessed journeyman trainer suddenly gets the opportunity to go to the sales, armed with the sort of hitherto undreamed-of financial backing to make him a candidate for the best prospects on offer? That was the situation suddenly presented to Conrad Allen, 36 years a trainer and, apart from three years when […]
For the past three years, observers of the British Turf have been all agog awaiting the equalling of the best-known of all Classic records – the late Lester Piggott’s nine Derby wins as a jockey, writes Tony Stafford. He was kept in suspended animation as Aidan O’Brien was poised on eight as a trainer when […]
When Aidan O’Brien turned up at Newmarket for the 2000 Guineas three weekends ago, hopes were high in the Ballydoyle team that the stable would be collecting a tenth success in the first Classic of the year, writes Tony Stafford. He had the favourite – the Vertem (ahem) Futurity winner, Auguste Rodin – of which […]
It could only happen in France, writes Tony Stafford. There were 15 runners in the Grade 1 Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil on Saturday and despite seven from Ireland, four Willie and one Emmet Mullins, a dual Cheltenham Stayers Hurdle winner (Flooring Porter) for Gavin Cromwell, and last month’s impressive Sandown Grade 2 chase winner […]
There are a lot of very rich people in the world. There are also many very talented racehorse trainers in the UK, in Ireland and France, writes Tony Stafford. Many wealthy individuals like to own racehorses, preferably blue-blooded ones. As trainers enter their middle years, though, the tendency is for all but the legends like […]
You say tomayto, I say tomahto. You say potayto, I say potahto, as the George and Ira Gershwin 1937 song Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off goes, illustrating the spoken differences in the American and British versions of the English language, writes Tony Stafford. You say Mage, I say Mawj. Two very similar four-letter words, […]
The problem with the international and even domestic racing programme is that when you get older, and appreciably so in my case, it spins ever faster, writes Tony Stafford. It seems it was only a few months ago that I was looking back at a just concluded UK jumps season and saying that by the […]
There is no question that one male and one female jockey transcend all others in the perception of people who may not be regular followers of our wonderful, but undeniably niche, sport. ITV are valiantly and very professionally increasing coverage on the main free channels it controls and nowadays have great flexibility on which platform […]
Seven weeks seems a fair amount of time, writes Tony Stafford. After all, it’s almost one seventh of a year and one-five hundred and forty-ninth of a lifetime if you judged lifetimes by my earthly experience. Actually, to me it seems like a couple of weeks. When I sat down to pen my article for […]
For the whole of the intervening 12 months, I have been insisting that Noble Yeats will win his second Randox Grand National at Aintree on Saturday, writes Tony Stafford. Winner at 50/1 as a seven-year-old last April, he is set to carry 15lb more this time and start at one-sixth the odds. But no matter! […]
For once, the start of the new turf flat season at Doncaster is not left jettisoned out on its own, writes Tony Stafford. Thanks to the convenient proximity of Easter, Good Friday racing in the UK – they still have refrained from joining in on the holy day in Ireland – features three flat-race programmes […]
Another big international meeting, the fourth of its stature since October, Dubai World Cup night following the Saudi Cup last month, the Breeders’ Cup in early November and the Arc meeting in late summer has been and gone; naturally, with a sideways acknowledgement to Champions Day back home in Ascot soon after the Arc, writes […]
Where to start about Cheltenham? Ever since the race following the Gold Cup on Friday afternoon, I resolved to write about a 66/1 winner that if we bothered (or had the time) to look closely at all the form, we could have been laughing all the way, if not to the bank, certainly to make […]
All those preview nights; all those column inches and television opinions and now, the ground, if you please, is soft, writes Tony Stafford. And if the forecast I saw on BBC weather on Saturday is correct - I still look at it first even though you don’t get much worth having for your licence fee […]
