Some weeks, I worry right until the moment when I finally open the keyboard, wondering what to put into these rambling epistles, writes Tony Stafford. Often, it’s a lottery, with random episodes of equal, often minimal, importance to weigh. Other times, like this weekend, I’m spoilt for choice. Monday Musings is not an organ of […]
They stood in the owners’ lunchroom at Doncaster yesterday on Mike Cattermole’s cue and perfectly observed the requested two minutes’ silence, writes Tony Stafford. Then, on the big screen behind the excellent cold and hot buffet, was the unforgettable image of Her Late Majesty’s greatest moment as a racehorse owner – never mind winning the […]
What is or was your favourite flat racehorse? Once that is revealed the inevitable question, certainly to my own favourite, is why, or more likely, who was he? I have been unequivocal about mine for more than 60 years. I had already played my first game at Lord’s for London Federation of Boys Clubs when […]
The last time I saw Tony Hind, the super jockey agent who shares his time between being a Tottenham Hotspur fanatic and grooming jockeys into becoming champions, three weeks ago at Newmarket, he wasn’t taking anything for granted, writes Tony Stafford. “No, we’ll be going full on until it’s mathematically impossible for William to be […]
They came in their droves to York on Wednesday just to see the best horse in the world, writes Tony Stafford. They saw him and he delivered by six-and-a-half lengths from the horse who had won the richest horse race in the world – if not this year, last. A lot had been invested in […]
Last week I said something ill-advised, writes Tony Stafford. What’s strange about that you ask? I put it down to my infrequent acquisition of the tangible paper version of the Racing Post. When it was my first act every morning, even before the long-discarded and much-lamented bacon sandwich, I quickly turned to the stats and […]
They say you learn from your mistakes, writes Tony Stafford. If that is so, how come I managed to lose a mobile phone ten yards from the place in Ascot’s number two car park on Saturday, going home after a low-key Shergar Cup, where I mislaid the last one, never to re-surface? The process was […]
Listening to one racing show last week I was surprised to learn that the broadcaster talking about the Goodwood Cup had not known the race distance had once been two miles and five furlongs rather than the two miles of nowadays, writes Tony Stafford. Why would he, he probably hadn’t been born when the last […]
One training centre above all others was at the forefront of the action this weekend just past as four (or technically five) of its incumbents joined in the bonanza with wins of varying importance, writes Tony Stafford. It was a rarity for me not to have been at the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth […]
All is not well in the United Kingdom, writes Tony Stafford. No, not the fact that racing in the Midlands and South today and tomorrow has been called off because of the expectation of heatwave conditions. Everything seems to be grinding to a halt, apart from Covid which is enjoying an unexpected out-of-season revival. We […]
For a few years now I’ve had a constant companion on my bedside table, writes Tony Stafford. Horse Trader, published in the early 1990’s and written by Patrick Robinson with Nick Robinson, tells the story of Robert Sangster’s unlikely path to the pinnacle of international racing and breeding. I’ve read it cover to cover at […]
The first weekend in July was always considered the pivotal moment in the flat-race season, writes Tony Stafford. It was the time when the best of the present Classic crop could meet their elders in the time-honoured Coral-Eclipse Stakes. That is certainly one sponsorship name that always deserves linking with its race. Receiving a 10lb […]
The only people with a worse record than racecourse tipsters must be the weather forecasters who, in the early summer of 2022, have repeatedly predicted copious amounts of rainfall, only most often to have to admit they were wrong, writes Tony Stafford. The latest example to affect me, or rather not, was Friday’s warning of […]
We’ve just been through five days of the most wonderful racing – and, until Saturday, flawless weather – at Royal Ascot, but for many the experience was incomplete, writes Tony Stafford. For my part, I don’t think I managed to make a single phone call on my mobile on any of the four days I […]
A lot has changed in three years, writes Tony Stafford. Yes, it’s that long since I’ve been to Royal Ascot and it won’t be the same with different allegiances and in some ways different means of getting there. Over the interim with first Covid and its continued effects – my younger daughter contracted it for […]
