How do you like a fairy tale, writes Tony Stafford. As so many English trainers have noted, the inflexible rules concerning the Grand National weights do not allow such potential winners as Midlands Grand National hero Mr Vango from giving Sara Bradstock the chance to join her late father John Oaksey with a place in […]
How ironic! As Gary Wiltshire, against all the odds, financial and physiological, makes it into his 70’s almost thirty years after being blown out of the water by Frankie Dettori’s seven-out-of-seven through-the-card feat at Ascot in 1996, his Italian nemesis is suing for bankruptcy. Despite alleged earnings in the UK of £15 million, (and the […]
We’re in that fallow period between the Cheltenham Festival and Aintree’s Grand National meeting, writes Tony Stafford. Not much happens although this time round my wish to see a horse go off odds on for the National early next month will not happen. Inothewayurthinkin was taken out of the race last week. No doubt JP […]
Make no mistake. It was another Cheltenham bloodbath for the UK horses. Even if the first day’s four wins offered a crumb of comfort. It was only four beats three because once Constitution Hill fell halfway round in the Champion Hurdle, it needed another catastrophe from State Man to gift the race to Golden Ace. […]
I went to a very swish Cheltenham Preview Night in the Bleeding Heart Restaurant, a stone’s throw, as they used to say, from Farringdon Station in London on Saturday, writes Tony Stafford. I had the good fortune to have been invited by a friend and so well was my attendance anticipated, I was designated Malcolm […]
We all expect there to be a minimal European presence these days in the dirt races on the Breeders’ Cup cards every November as the stark difference between the two forms of the sport in the United States becomes ever more obvious, writes Tony Stafford. Aidan O’Brien’s attempts to secure dual and enhanced appeal for […]
It’s official – well almost, the best flat racehorse in the world is a seven-year-old gelding, writes Tony Stafford. True, Romantic Warrior didn’t win the Saudi Cup in Riyadh on Saturday, but he made the high-class Japanese dirt specialist Forever Young pull out all the stops, only getting overhauled in the last 25 yards and […]
Much was made when the entries came out of this year’s alleged “levelling up” of the respective teams for the Randox Grand National, writes Tony Stafford. Home stables, tired of the now routine grab of almost all of the £1 million prize money by the Irish, had entered close to half (37 of the 87 […]
The news that H H the Aga Khan, head of the Nizari Ismaili Muslim sect, had died last week thrust me back more than 30 years, writes Tony Stafford. At the time I was scrabbling around trying to buy cheap horses, usually those that didn’t reach their reserves at the conclusion of the Tattersalls’ Horses […]
Amid all the extravagantly impressive performances of Wilie Mullins’ three winners on the first day of the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown on Saturday, I must say I was transfixed by one less predictable show a little nearer to home, writes Tony Stafford. Anyway, that’s how I would describe Musselburgh for us down south. I […]
They crammed into Cheltenham on Saturday, intent on watching possibly the best hurdler of all time go through a public work-out where the betting market suggested there was only a single chance in 13 that he might not retain his unbeaten record, writes Tony Stafford. Constitution Hill, back from his year’s inactivity with a smart […]
A week ago, I sat down at this keyboard wondering who were the lunatics that thought staging the inaugural so-called Berkshire Winter Million over the following weekend was a viable project, writes Tony Stafford. The frost stood outside like snow on the whole of my car and temperatures had plunged to minus 5 degrees overnight. […]
At least we had South Africa’s biggest weight-for-age race to talk about last week, writes Tony Stafford. This time, it’s a perambulation taking in Exeter Stables near Newmarket, Manton in Wiltshire, and a couple of sports-themed restaurants and entertainment venues in London’s West End. I’ve got to know Michael Solle, a senior executive of the […]
The commentator summed it up as he went over the line, writes Tony Stafford. One Stripe was one of only two three-year-olds in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday. “The Prince becomes a King”, he said, deserved praise indeed as the Vaughan Marshall colt by top local stallion One World weaved through […]
Who else could have handled it? Never mind Willie Mullins for all his mastery at winning championship races, writes Tony Stafford. Add those other Irish behemoths of jumps training, Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead. You could probably slip Joseph O’Brien onto that list now he has renewed his love of collecting Grade 1 jumping […]
