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 […]
Things move along rapidly in life in the 21st Century even if a certain English monarch has shown plenty of stickability, writes Tony Stafford. In the Coolmore box on Saturday after the authoritative triumph by Desert Crown in the Cazoo Derby, the main players were adamant we had all witnessed a superstar – one that […]
They descended on Leicester racecourse that October Monday afternoon in their droves, writes Tony Stafford. I arrived in the smooth-riding Mercedes driven by Bryn Crossley – incidentally, for one season, “my” project as we pieced together an apprentices’ title. But that was years before. Now I was observer on the trip up from Newmarket on […]
He might have got the 2,000 Guineas the wrong way round for UK punters, but Native Trail’s defeat by stable-mate Coroebus left the way clear for the vanquished Newmarket favourite to gain his own piece of Classic hardware at The Curragh on Saturday, writes Tony Stafford. In between, of course, Charlie Appleby, who trains both […]
One early morning a few years ago in the days when I still bought a Racing Post rather than access the online version, my regular source did not have a copy, writes Tony Stafford. Not to be outdone I jumped in the car and made a stop at Tesco’s big store at Bromley-By-Bow in between […]
So the age-old Derby formula will not be holding this year, writes Tony Stafford. Third in the 2,000 Guineas (well fourth it used to be, as I conceded last week) meant first in the Derby at Epsom, but Luxembourg is lame. He will therefore not be carrying the Coolmore/Westerberg colours into yet another very probable […]
Standing by the side of the paddock as the generally agreed handsome field for the 2,000 Guineas lined past, Alex Cole, son of trainer Paul and elder brother of joint-trainer Oliver, and Olly Sangster, grandson of Robert, were agreed that the three principals in the market were the biggest and the best-looking, writes Tony Stafford. […]
