The most predictable thing about Mark Johnston is his unpredictability, writes Tony Stafford. When most Scotsmen would be thinking of First Footing on New Year’s Eve, his mind was set on Last Running as he let it be known publicly that his entries in conjunction with son Charlie at Wolverhampton on that Friday evening would […]
You have a mare like Epatante, winner of a past Champion Hurdle, successful in 11 and placed in seven more of her 19 career runs and you now know – having witnessed Aintree last year, that she probably ought to be contesting races of 2m4f up, writes Tony Stafford. With the weather as it has […]
After a totally blank week of jumping and not much some-weather racing either, a £5k to the winner race ought not be taking much of my attention as we wait for the elements to relent in time for the big Christmas programmes in the UK and Ireland, writes Tony Stafford. The Irish took the first […]
Cork managed to race yesterday as indeed, rather more surprisingly, did Southwell, but when we will get some more jumping – in the UK at any rate – is possibly more open to question, writes Tony Stafford. Today’s two cards have already gone and the Arena Racing Company, which runs Southwell, can giveth with one […]
The fallout from that unfortunate Ascot meeting last month continued at Sandown on Saturday when the third member of the famed Absentee Triumvirate made just as emphatic a statement as the other two had signalled a week earlier at Newcastle, writes Tony Stafford. In all, there were 14 non-appearances that frustrating Saturday afternoon, when faster […]
The minute the decision was made to pull Constitution Hill out of a probable exhibition round that was going to double as his return to action at Ascot last weekend, you knew Nicky Henderson would merely shrug his shoulders and switch him to Newcastle, writes Tony Stafford. What about 2020 Champion Hurdle heroine Epatante, long […]
You can take a horse to Ascot, but you can’t make him run, writes Tony Stafford. This November 2022 re-working of the old proverb, where opportunities are spurned by those to whom they are presented, fitted nicely into events at that most wonderful of British racecourses last weekend. Top hats and fashion in high summer […]
When the Ben Pauling-trained mare Anightinlambourn battled bravely up the Cheltenham hill to win her third chase from her last four starts for the Ben Pauling stable, it might have been seen as an omen, writes Tony Stafford. Certainly so, that is, by two handlers (unlike Ben) who train in the Valley and who had […]
If you could find it possible for present-day owners and trainers of a more recent vintage than John Gosden or even in the US, Wayne Lukas, to have a blow-by-blow retrospective of the astonishing goings-on at the Keeneland Selected July Yearling sales in the 1980’s – long since abandoned in favour of augmenting the September […]
Last week I made a couple of trips to Newmarket sales where I marvelled at the seemingly never-ending stream of - mainly overseas - buyers keen to pick up second-hand UK and Irish thoroughbreds, writes Tony Stafford. Not just pick them up, but happy to pay handsomely for them. The Australians set the pace and […]
It took a fair amount of thought before Auguste Rodin was confirmed a runner for Saturday’s Vertem Futurity at Doncaster, writes Tony Stafford. I understand for much of the morning Michael Tabor was resigned to his and the rest of the Coolmore partners’ best 2023 Derby candidate missing the race through the predicted heavy ground. […]
After the past two weeks of sales and racing at Newmarket, no wonder Charlie Appleby looked frazzled just after 4.15 p.m. on Saturday as he sat down for a welcome cup of tea, directly opposite my vantage point in a box in the grandstand at Ascot, writes Charlie Appleby. I said, “You are champion trainer […]
By this time next week it will all just about be done, writes Tony Stafford. The 2022 flat limps on for another three weeks after Saturday’s Champions Day at Ascot, but William Buick will have collected his first Champion Jockey trophy and Baaeed will probably have brought his career-ending tally to 11 from 11 – […]
It was good enough to chat to Sir Mark Prescott and Kirsten Rausing in the sunshine of York before and after Alpinista’s fifth consecutive Group 1 success back in the summer, when she beat the gallant Oaks winner, Tuesday, in the Yorkshire Oaks, writes Tony Stafford. Yesterday I contentedly sat at home watching her battling […]
Autumn was already setting in on the second Sunday of October last year when the Curragh staged the Paddy Power Irish Cesarewitch, a long-established two-mile handicap, writes Tony Stafford. The race was billed as a Premier Handicap, and it attracted the customary full field of 30, with reserves on the day not getting a run. […]
