Monday Musings: Breeding Hope

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The first weekend after the Cheltenham Festival, also a fortnight before the Aintree Grand National meeting, has evolved into a special opportunity for mares (and sometimes four-year-old fillies) at either end of the country, writes Tony Stafford.

Kelso, two, and Newbury, one, offer valuable races exclusively for females, but the biggest individual prize is the £65,000 to the winner Goffs Hundred Grand Bumper, also open to geldings at Newbury. Five females were among 19 runners, all of which were previously offered at auction by Goffs. The outcome was a thrilling finish between two four-year-old fillies, debutant Lady Hope (33/1), trained by Hughie Morrison, and Nicky Henderson’s once-raced and well fancied Madam Speaker.

Both youngsters finished strongly past Irish Goodbye, who seemed to have the race won coming to the closing stages; but close home Lady Hope was drawing away under Jonny Burke, and Sean Bowen on the runner-up could do nothing about it. Irish Goodbye’s effort, conceding 7lb to the first two, suggests there will be much more to come from the Twiston-Davies gelding in the future.

Understandably, Morrison was elated afterwards, regarding the daughter of Nathaniel as a potential staying star over jumps. “Her mother is by Midnight Legend and is out of the great mare Lady Rebecca. She’s only four, so we’ll take our time with her.”

She wasn’t cheap at £55k as a three-year-old, bought for Martin Hughes and Michael Kerr-Dineen. Former trainer Paul Webber was part of the selection panel with Morrison and the would-be owners. Hughes sent Eyed to Morrison when Webber retired from training in the summer of 2024 and he has won three races over fences with him.

It was a great day for Nathaniel as in the previous race at Newbury the BetVictor mares’ limited handicap hurdle, his daughter Charisma Cat came through strongly under Tom Bellamy to win for Alan King and Annabel Waley-Cohen, family and friends.

Grand National time of year always resonates with the Waley-Cohen name, through the exploits over a decade or more of amateur rider son Sam, whose record for completions and wins over the big fences has never been matched by any professional. Winning the big race on his last ride in 2022 on father Robert’s Noble Yeats was an emphatic and fitting final gesture from this modest young man.

Hughie told me there was also a GBB bonus attached to Lady Hope’s race. He wasn’t sure whether it would be 20k or half that amount. “Let’s be positive and say it’s 20k,” he said. “When can you run first time and win 85 grand? My trainer’s share of that will probably pay the staff wages for four days!”

In the spring sunshine, Hughie and wife Mary were heading off to Fonthill Stud where they have a couple of siblings to Secret Squirrel and one to Mary’s home-bred Filanderer, winner of five of his last seven races. One of the Secret Squirrel relatives is by Marmelo, his Melbourne Cup runner-up.

Now 13, Marmelo “has had six days out drag hunting and had his first team chase the other day, when he led the team throughout his round,” said Morrison. Marmelo covers the odd mare and one of his clients with a young horse is Mr Perriss, owner of Cheltenham Festival winner White Noise.

Hughie reckons it costs upwards of 30 grand to keep a horse from birth to their three-year-old days. “Then there’s the stud fee to consider. It makes no sense really. How many prizes like Saturday’s are there to spread around?”

Newsells Park Stud has stood Nathaniel ever since he retired from racing as a dual Group 1 winner of the Eclipse and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. His fee for this year is £17,500 and Gary Coffey, the stud’s racing manager, reckons he will have a similar number of mares to last year’s 115. When all the accounting is sorted, it could be around 120.

Despite the excellent achievements of his progeny over jumps, the vast proportion of mares sent to Nathaniel are for flat racing. That’s hardly surprising as he is the sire of once-in-a-lifetime filly Enable and Derby hero Desert Crown.

Newsells has three other stallions: A’Ali, Without Parole and Isaac Shelby. That last-named horse’s first foals are now on the ground and Sam Sangster has had excellent reports of them. Sam initially bought Isaac Shelby with his trainer Brian Meehan for one of his Manton Thoroughbreds syndicates and they all had a commercial dividend when he was bought in mid-career by Wathnan Racing.

Isaac Shelby was the easy winner of the Group 3 Greenham Stakes which he followed with a close second in the French 2,000 Guineas. Coffey says Isaac Shelby, who stands for £7,000, is the only son of top 2025 UK/Ireland money-earner Night Of Thunder to stand at stud in the UK.

In overall European earnings, Night Of Thunder fell behind the recently deceased Wootton Bassett and Sea The Stars, whose overall tally of more than £10 million was boosted by the £2.36 million earned when Daryz won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe for Francis Graffard last October.

Sam Sangster, trainer Ollie’s near-contemporary and uncle, can point to such as Rashabar and Kathmandu as yearling purchases that went within a whisker of Group 1/Classic success, both with Meehan. Brian’s stable should be more powerful this season as Sam reckons there’s around ten horses rated at 100 or more, reporting that multiple Group 1-placed Rashabar, now four, will be brought back to a mile this year.

The filly Esna, owned by Martin Hughes and partners, is rated 107 after her fourth in the Marcel Boussac at the Arc meeting. She will be aimed at the 1,000 Guineas, while the progressive Bourbon Blues, rated 105, is another Hughes horse. He was just edged out at Group 2 level in France in mid-November and will also have an attacking programme early in the season. Both were Sam Sangster buys as yearlings.

A new arrival is the former Gosden-trained Miss Justice. This five-year-old by Triple Crown winner Justify, won at Listed level at Salisbury and ended her time with the Gosdens with a close second at Group 2 level at Newmarket. She cost 750,000gns at the December sale and has been pleasing her new trainer since then.

Until Sam pounced in midsummer to buy the Aidan O’Brien-trained Diego Velazquez, he had never been able to say: “I bought a Group 1 winner.” Days after the purchase though, Diego Velazquez did just that, and not any old Group 1, but France’s Prix Jacques Le Marois at Deauville where subsequent Breeders’ Cup winner Notable Speech was the runner-up.

At £17,500 a pop at the National Stud, where he is owned by a consortium, he has been hot property indeed, and Sam says that a total figure north of 120 covers is likely. Also, he is to have a shuttle season to Australia.

“He was a no-brainer really”, says Sam. “By Frankel, even without the Group 1 which was a great bonus for the owners, he was a multiple Group 2 winner and is a fantastic stamp of a horse. He has attracted a smart bunch of mares, notably Lucida, winner of the Rockfel at two for Jim Bolger and then second in the 1,000 Guineas. It gives him a great chance of a fast start.”

Diego Velazquez is a half-brother to Broome and Point Lonsdale, but as that Deauville win shows, he is much the quickest of the trio, with his best performances being at seven furlongs and a mile. Exciting days all round.

- TS

Monday Musings: Talk is Cheap!

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They say talk is cheap, writes Tony Stafford. Well, there was plenty of it going around at Cheltenham on Thursday with Willie Mullins and JP McManus both being highly critical of the state of the going. It was the basis of their late decision to withdraw last year’s winner and red-hot favourite Fact To File from the Ryanair Chase.

In his absence, the nine-length 2025 runner-up Heart Wood got the better of McManus and Nicky Henderson’s brave former two-mile paragon Jonbon by ten comfortable lengths. No wonder they were irritated by Fact To File’s absence, not that Henry de Bromhead would have minded.

In a week where Mullins did run 74 horses – his only other non-runner being Leader d’Allier through lameness in Tuesday’s opener - his carping about the ground, saying that he would consider not running horses at future Festivals if that were not addressed, seems a little illogical at best.

Across the four days, his uber-classy horses picked up around £1.6 million, comfortably ahead of last year’s haul. He’s now halfway towards Dan Skelton’s seasonal tally, but surely it’s still too much cash to make up. Skelton responded with two right old jobs in a couple of the hardest-to-win handicaps. Recent form wasn’t a clue to either, just Dan’s predilection for laying one out as he has been doing at the Festival for several years.

Over in the Willie corner, Mullins had eight wins, including both the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup for the Riccis, six second places, three thirds, five fourths and a solitary fifth place. With seven pulled ups and a trio of fallers, the only spot he didn’t fill in the first 20 was 19th. That’s something he might address next year – if he sends over any horses that is!

The times both on the Old Course, used on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the New Course for the final two days, seemed to suggest fairly similar underfoot conditions, usually close to standard. So probably good ground all round.

If the Mullins/McManus complaints had been in any way justified other than that the Thursday going would not suit one particular horse, albeit a very good one, then surely there would have been appreciably more than the nine horses withdrawn from the 489 slated to run. There were five absentees through lameness over the week so 475 took part, thus fewer than 3% in overall withdrawals.

Just as an example, Newcastle, one of the four Saturday jumps fixtures in the UK, had a total of 69 declared runners of which nine came out because of unsuitable ground on the day with the meeting raced on good to soft ground, soft in places going. Thus, seven times as many in proportion to the overall number of runners compared with Cheltenham.

It’s always a balancing act for Jon Pullin and his team. Often, as this year, until a fortnight before the fixture even heavy ground would be a possibility. Thanks to the effective drainage system on the track, a few dry, warmer days brings into play the need sometimes even for some selective watering, which I understand was applied to the hitherto unused New Course on Wednesday evening. Not enough for some (three on the day) but connections of another hundred plus were happy enough to run.

Although his banker of bankers didn’t run, JP had four nice wins and seven second and third places combined from the 32 of his horses that did compete. He had some disappointments among his most fancied runners, notably The New Lion, no match for Lossiemouth and just edged out by Brighterdaysahead for second in the Champion Hurdle. Another was his 7/2 favourite Proactif, one of nine for Mullins in the JCB Triumph Hurdle.

I would love to know which of the stable’s well-heeled owners gets first dibs when Mullins and Harold Kirk go on their shopping trips to France, mostly away from the sales ring. There are a number of juvenile hurdles, either in the late spring of the horses’ three-year-old season or later in the autumn, that get their attention, as was the case when Proactif made a winning six-length debut at Auteuil last September.

18 runners started that day and the easy winner Proactif had six lengths to spare over another debutant Apolon De Charnie. That horse was allowed to start 50/1 on Friday, half the price of the previous year’s winner Poniros, and he completely turned around the French form, winning comfortably with Proactif only ninth.

Ed Ware, founder and former owner the gaming site 32Red, has plenty of horses around the place, mainly with the Crisfords on the flat, and apart from Harold Kirk for recruiting jumpers, he uses the skills of former trainer and Godolphin stalwart David Loder in the sales ring for flat-race prospects.

What it cost to assemble such a squadron can only be a matter of speculation, but it is common knowledge that the HOS Syndicate paid €370k for Cork debut winner Minella Academy, who finished tenth of the 19 runners on Friday. It might not be fanciful to suggest that possibly the nine might have cost somewhere near (or even more than) the handsome seven-figure plunder the 74 Mullins horses earned over the four days.

It was probably a roll of the dice that led to Ed’s owning the right one of Mullins’ nine contenders on Friday. Mullins has now won the race five times in a row and seven in all, and the quirk is that all of the previous successful quartet ran last week.

JP’s Majborough, the 2024 winner, disappointed, probably having gone to too fast in the Queen Mother Champion for which he was the hot favourite. Last year’s hero Poniros, the one-time Ralph Beckett trainee, was a well-beaten sixth behind Lossiemouth, herself successful in the race three years ago, and now after two wins in the Mares’ race, graduated at age seven to the prime spot with a scintillating performance.

And you couldn’t keep the first of the Mullins quintet out of the picture, albeit away down in Sydney at the Rosehill track. Vauban, winning for the second time since departing for the stable of Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, repeated last year’s success in a near £100k Group 3 race over ten furlongs. It was a fine performance considering he last raced in the Melbourne Cup over 2m when a creditable sixth last November.

Very smart over jumps, he also won a Group 2 race over two miles at York in the last season before his exportation. No doubt another go at the Melbourne Cup will be on the agenda as an eight-year-old.

The running tally of Irish against UK winners took a turn for the better for the hosts, only going down by 15 wins to 13, decided in the final Martin Pipe conditional jockeys’ handicap hurdle by Henry de Bromhead’s Air Of Entitlement. She beat 25/1 Hot Fuss (Tom Dascombe) following on from last year’s success in the Grade 2 mares’ novice hurdle when she was one of 20 Irish against the meagre tally of eight for the UK.

This time around that race – the Dawn Run – found a 40/1 winner but a very popular one in White Noise, trained by Kim Bailey and his long-time assistant, now joint licence holder Mat Nichols. It’s been 31 years since Bailey won both the Champion Hurdle (Alderbrook) and Gold Cup (Master Oats) in the same year. The skill’s still there!

Another big price came in Friday’s opener, the three-mile Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle, won at 20/1 by the still unbeaten over hurdles Johnny’s Jury for Jamie Snowden and Gavin Sheehan.

There were various names put forward for ride of the week, among them Paul Townend on Gaelic Warrior in the Gold Cup. That made it a record five times in the race for Townend, but I prefer the claims of Sheehan. In a week of ragged, irritating false and then second and third-time unsatisfactory starts, Johnny’s Jury was left at the back of the pack.

Few riders do better when intentionally coming from a long way back. This was never the plan, but Sheehan took his time for the first couple of miles and, steering wide, came past the lot to win tidily.

Snowden had one career as a soldier before going as a pupil assistant to Nicky Henderson, at the same time collecting a hatful of victories for several years as a rider in the Military races at Sandown. This was his third Festival win and he’s now very much in the top echelon of UK trainers.

The Henderson grounding is rarely lost and it was equally enjoyable to see the Lambourn master collecting three more nice prizes on the week in addition to Jango Baie’s terrific effort when second as the youngest horse in the Gold Cup line-up.

Both Gaelic Warrior and Jango Baie are previous winners of the Arkle Challenge Cup over two miles for novice chasers at the meeting showing, if ever it was needed, that speed is the best attribute for winning races, even over staying trips. What a week, pity Willie won’t be back next year!

- TS

Monday Musings: We’re Ready

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The days are getting appreciably longer, writes Tony Stafford. We’ve already snatched back three and a half hours of daylight from the miserly spans of midwinter, and Cheltenham starts tomorrow. In other words, 2026 begins now.

Two septuagenarians, Messrs Henderson and Mullins, have for decades been the major forces at the meeting, and neither is ready to lie down as the opening day entries show, but such as Dan Skelton, Ben Pauling and Olly Murphy on this side of the Irish Sea, and grittily determined Gordon Elliott, Willie’s Irish shadow for the past decade and more, as well as Gavin Cromwell and Henry de Bromhead, will be poised if either drops off from their usual lofty excellence.

Not everything will be the same. For the first time since 2011, Henderson will not be represented in the Champion Hurdle, a race he has won nine times. In the competitive absence of Group-seeking flat-minded nine-year-old Constitution Hill and injured Sir Gino, he can instead watch with pride the former’s gracing of the paddock before the race we thought he might win three or even four times before injury and a strange later aversion to jumping at racing speed took over.

Mullins has three chances, principally with the mare Lossiemouth, backed over the past few days into favouritism. Less obvious are Poniros, last year’s shock Triumph Hurdle winner, and Anzadam, runner-up in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle to Golden Ace late last year.

Two more from Ireland, the drifting third-favourite and Lossiemouth last-time humbler Brighterdaysahead (Gordon), and Workahead (Henry). Maybe this 66/1 shot isn’t a feasible contender but surely Henry De Bromhead is entitled to have another crack having won the race both in 2021 and the following year with Honeysuckle.

That great course specialist, along with now-retired Rachael Blackmore, came back to win the Mares’ race as a career finale in 2023, wisely side-stepping Constitution Hill when Nicky’s phenomenon was at his peak.

It wasn’t feasible either we thought before Jeremy Scott’s Golden Ace pounced last year following Constitution Hill’s early exit and most crucially State Man’s last flight fall when Mullins’ 2024 hero looked certain to follow up. He too is missing this year through injury.

We’ve been waiting for something to emerge from where I knew not, so with all the trials and tribulations out of the way, we’re left with The New Lion, worthy, dependable, much in the way of his trainer Dan Skelton, set for a final tally of more than £4 million for the season.

The New Lion, winner of the Turners novice hurdle over 2m5f last year, could have been returning with a faultless career record, but it’s now five from six following his being the second fall guy (along with Constitution Hill) in Golden Ace’s Newcastle success, secured at another massive price.

Skelton’s big hope appeared to have the race won on his first start since last March when falling late on, leaving Golden Ace to hold off Mullins’ Anzadam. The New Lion took his time to assert in what ended up a penalty kick on Trials Day at Cheltenham, but he comes here with the right profile. Brighterdaysahead’s dominant display against Lossiemouth at the Dublin Racing Festival, it seems, hasn’t been taken seriously by the market, presumably because of her capitulation last March.

So, the three most powerful stables in the two countries this season take centre stage. Their records for the campaign domestically are remarkably similar, numerically and in money terms. Skelton’s inexorable rise to a first trainer’s championship cannot be cheated this time, even if Mullins takes all the races he contests this week, has a clean sweep of the ten paying positions in the Grand National, and nicks all the other big prizes there and at Ayr and Sandown next month.

Skelton is on £3,462k, a full £3,160k more than Mullins. Even if Willie matches last year’s four Cheltenham daily takeaways of respectively £267k, £245k, £243k and a finishing £475k – which didn’t include the Gold Cup – that would ‘only’ amount to £1,230k. I doubt Dan will be heading off on holiday over the last seven weeks of the season either.

I love looking at stats in my customary now and again mode. Which of Mullins and Elliott do you think leads the prizemoney table in Ireland? As has often been the case at this stage, and sometimes even later, it’s Elliott. It’s taken 305 individual horses and 1,002 runs, 164 of them winners, to earn €4,340k. Mullins, much more sparing with runs from his 274 individual horses, has won 161 of 661, so 500 losers for €3,963K. I wonder how many of them were odds-on [55 odds-on losers from 127 - Ed.]

Over the last fortnight Mullins has won with 13 of 35 runners, supplying in that time the same number of odds-on shots. Tomorrow, between them, Mullins and Elliott have almost half the 45 Irish-trained runners on the opening day card. The home team has 67, with Henderson striking off early with favourite Old Park Star (Supreme) against Mullins’ Mighty Park (JP McManus), then Lulamba close in the market against Willie’s favourite and last year’s Supreme winner Kopek Des Bordes in the Arkle, with another mare Kargese as the Irishman’s back-up in a terrific seven-horse line-up.

Gary and Josh Moore were the stars of Saturday’s Sandown card, and their Hansard is worthy of his place against better-publicised opponents. Add Sam Thomas’s Steel Ally, who saw off Ben Pauling’s candidate and reopposing Mambonumberfive when they met at Kempton, and it’s a heady mix.

Lulamba won the Game Spirit Chase at Newbury despite showing obvious signs of inexperience and that was never the case with Steel Ally at Kempton. In three runs over fences, he has won with increasing facility each time and has the sexiest of French jumping pedigrees being by Doctor Dino out of a mare by Martaline. At 12/1, he’s worth a second look.

When I peeped at the Racing Post last Wednesday to check I was still alive, I was described as Tony Stafford – former Daily Telegraph tipster, or was it journalist? My memory! Anyway, I am still here, and reckon that in the first race, reviving my old tipster role, I’m looking for Elliott to disappoint both Henderson and Mullins with El Cairos.

With Gary and Josh Moore last season, he did very well when amateur-ridden by then owner David Maxwell and was sold at the owner’s dispersal for £410k. The Moores will not have been surprised by the talent he is showing over hurdles, stumbling and falling unluckily on the run-in when in the lead on debut and then an easy winner from a Mullins horse last time. No doubt Gary wishes he still had him to train.

For a value bet number three, let’s go with Faye Bramley’s Winston Junior – no not named after Sir Keir – winner of his latest of three runs at Ascot in scintillating front-running style. His owners might give a clue as to why he’s 8/1 in a massive field for what deserves forever to be known as just the Fred Winter, despite whoever adds their name to it.

The trio of connections – Ronnie Bartlett, Justin Carthy (JP’s mate) and Mrs Paul Shanahan (and her husband of course) – know how to line up a winner from whichever yard their horses happen to run.

Just as I’d stopped looking, a name from a year or so ago jumped out at me. Walking On Air began life in the Nicky Henderson stable, running very well in bumpers in the colours of Mrs Doreen Tabor. He didn’t always live up to the promise of those early days and, since late in 2024, various owner combinations including Justin Carthy and Mrs Shanahan have been alongside his name.

Now it’s the Cheeky Pups and again trainer Faye Bramley, a protégé of AP McCoy’s, who trains him. The nine-year-old’s last run was a good third to Geegeez’ Dartmoor Pirate in the Great Yorkshire Chase at Doncaster last month.

I mentioned top French breeding earlier. Walking On Air’s pedigree takes some beating. He’s by Michael Tabor’s Derby runner-up, the wonderful jumps sire Walk in The Park, out of his smart long-distance mare Refinement. It’s 18 years since I was alongside Harry Taylor in the Cheltenham paddock watching on the big screen as Refinement came to the line just in front in the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle.

Just before the line, I turned to Harry and said, “She’s won!”.

Eyes still on the screen, Harry said, “She hasn’t!” and she hadn’t, letting Whiteoak get back by a short head. She had one more run, another second place for Jonjo O’Neill and AP McCoy in Ireland, and then retired.

I asked Michael if she would go to stud. “Me send a jump mare to stud? How f…ing old would I be before she got a runner?” Well, Michael did relent and Refinement has bred four nice jumps winners including Walking On Air. A 12/1 shot for tomorrow and also from the Bramley yard, he can make it a memorable afternoon for his young trainer.

- TS

Monday Musings: Windfall

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You may have got the idea on reading these ramblings over the past ten years or so that I must have comfortably exceeded my historically allotted three score years and ten lifespan, writes Tony Stafford. A letter through the post last week confirmed it.

It was from the Pensions Service and informed me that as I was approaching (this week in fact) my 80th birthday I was entitled to an additional payment on my state pension. In these stringent times, anything extra is welcome.

Then I read the detail. I was going to be paid an extra 25p per week - £13 in the year. Imagine how much it costs in organisation in the office and the charge for postage to set in motion such a letter - multiplied by how many other great survivors have earned that handsome sum.

Governments are always taken to task about wastage of their incomings. I would gladly give up my increase if everyone else did. In my dad’s day, five bob (25p) as it was, would have bought a slap-up meal for four. Now maybe half a dozen Maltesers! As my son says, everything these days costs a grand…

I’ve mentioned a few times the book I helped trainer Victor Thompson to write, along with his partner Gina Coulson. It covers all that period and he’s even a few years further along the road. Despite excellent reviews from people that did manage to secure a copy of Fifty Years In The Fast Lane, Weatherbys have felt obliged to discontinue selling it owing to some legal issues that Victor believes to be totally spurious – but that’s how it is. He’s been exploring other avenues and one of them came to mind when I met up with my children and grandchildren yesterday in a birthday gathering.

As soon as I arrived, my eldest granddaughter told me about a new job she recently started close to where her parents have just moved house. I’m not sure how it came up, but she says that her female boss, once an amateur jockey, was a regular reader of my columns in the Daily Telegraph and that she also reads these weekly jottings around a quarter of a century since I left the paper.

This is probably the time to mention Marcus Armytage’s daughter Molly’s 50/1 win in a Leicester hunter chase early last week on her first ride under Rules, having only just before got off the mark in a point-to-point. Marcus of course won the Grand National before he joined the Daily Telegraph racing team and he cannot be far off my final figure of 30 years at the paper, or maybe even past it.

Marcus was in his teens when I had a brief connection with his father Roddy, who trained near Newbury. In 1984 I was amazed to see that David Elsworth was running a particular horse in a seller at a Monday night Windsor meeting.

I wanted to claim it, but being less than keen to suffer the often-irascible Mr Elsworth’s ire should I manage to do so in the event of its not winning the race, I left it to my colleague Adrian Hunt to go to Windsor and do the deed.

The horse didn’t win that night, and Adrian duly put in the successful claim. I managed to form a syndicate of very nice people, among them the late Nigel Clark, and sent him to Roddy.

Within months he had won three times over hurdles and I’m not sure what happened to him after that. Why the interest you might say? In the spring of 1982, Duke Of Dollis – the horse in question – had finished third in a Classic trial behind Golden Fleece (Vincent O’Brien), winner of the Derby that year, and Assert (Vincent’s son David O’Brien), who went on to win the French and Irish Derbys!

If you think 1984 is a long time ago, another ex-Telegraph man George Hill told me last week that one of his first jobs, two decades before Duke Of Dollis, was to ring around trainers on a Sunday for their future plans to be put in The Racehorse, a well-respected trade paper that I was to edit for a few years in the 1970’s, and Roddy was one of his regulars. George says he was always a lovely man to deal with. It clearly runs in the family.

But back to my early birthday party. When my son and his family arrived, they had a printout from Amazon – the preferred outlet suggested by Victor Thompson to market his book and make it available to what he thinks is a wider potential audience.

In September 1994 the Little Black Racing Book, commissioned by Harper Collins, was published, with a foreword by Lester Piggott. The description says, “Champion tipster Tony Stafford takes an informed look at the world of horse racing. He distils a lifetime <there’s been another one since that!> of experience and observation into practical advice as to how to get the most from the sport… contains many anecdotes about the colourful characters who people racing – from owners, trainers and jockeys to punters, stewards and bookmakers”.

Then, at the foot of the same page detailing the hardback publication, Amazon helpfully tells, “About the Author”. Underneath it suggests potential buyers “follow authors to get more release updates plus improved recommendations.”

Underneath again is a tolerable and contemporary smiling picture of me with Tony Stafford alongside underlined. And then it goes slightly off message as they say these days.

It begins “Tony Jason Stafford” – hang on, I seem to think it’s Anthony John although I am getting on a bit! - “was born in a small cotton textile-mill town on the outskirts of Charlotte. He came from a long line of uneducated <steady on!> poor dirt farmers <possible, I’ve never looked at Ancestry!> “while his immediate family were fanatical, church-going Southern Baptist fundamentalists and he spent a great part of his early life in church meetings of one kind or another.”

I did indeed go regularly to Sunday School until the age of around 12 and to Cubs at the Lower Clapton Congregational Church only finishing up that weekly pastime when old enough to go to Eton Manor Boys Club at the age of 14 on March 4, 1960. Anyway, let’s hear some more of “my” alternate story as told by Amazon.

At an early age Amazon’s “Tony was persuaded to believe that he had been ‘saved’ <many years later, deliverance from a fate almost worse than death was provided enabling me to “cover up” some ill-directed investments> “and a little later he was told that God had called him to be a preacher. He played high school football and did all the things that high school teenage boys do in a small, provincial town.”

There’s much more of its mentioning Tony Jason’s journey through a spiritual crisis when invited to be the student minister of a small Baptist mission. More interestingly, I (or rather TJ) in that summer “was surrounded by lots of female flesh as a lifeguard at a swimming pool.”

Lifesaver no way, but in those sixth-form days at Central Foundation Grammar School in Central London in the summer holidays we often used to frequent the outdoor lidos that were always then a target for boys of our age. Finchley, the Oasis and London Fields were among the favourites. Whether I approve of the term “female flesh” mentioned alongside my 32-year-old offering in the febrile days of the Epstein papers is quite another matter.

So there it is Victor. Don’t believe everything you read on Amazon or anywhere else. Do you think I have a case for suing them?

**

Back to racing. I’m glad Constitution Hill will not be going to Cheltenham a week tomorrow. The word from owner Michael Buckley was Newbury and the John Porter Stakes. If he wins against classy grass performers, the high hopes engendered by Southwell might become a possibility, but he won’t be facing trees from now on.

The latest Hong Kong update. Last week it was the sprinter Ka Ying Rising at 1/20 making it a record 18 in a row. Yesterday it was ten-furlong colossus Romantic Warrior also going off at that price as he made it 22 wins from 29 starts, edging career earnings close to £26 million under New Zealander James McDonald.

Joseph O’Brien’s jockey Dylan Browne McMonagle finished runner-up on an 87/1 shot in the six-horse affair and will be counting his blessings for stopping off there over the winter. He is in for the rider’s share of £260k. Nice work if you can get it.

- TS

Monday Musings: A Strong Constitution

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Almost exactly a year ago, I was invited by my friend Malcolm Cain to attend a Cheltenham preview meeting on a Saturday evening in Central London, writes Tony Stafford. It was a great do, very close to the event itself, and much debate focused on whether Constitution Hill would be able to regain the Champion Hurdle he had ceded to State Man and injury the previous year.

Lydia Hislop was one of the panellists and she was wary about the present state of his jumping whereas I managed to get in a word suggesting he was the best hurdler I’d ever seen. As we all know, he fell in the Champion Hurdle a few days later when a 4/7 shot; tumbled over again at Aintree the following month, and stopped as if shot at Punchestown.

In the five-horse Fighting Fifth Hurdle on his comeback run last November he got only as far as the second hurdle when making it three falls and a submission in his four latest runs following an unblemished ten victories in a row and a total of 103 lengths to the good.

While the behind-the-scenes machinations that produced last Friday’s £40k 4yo and up novice race at Southwell over one and a half miles might well have had ulterior motives, the desired effect – a win for the nine-year-old – was achieved and spectacularly so.

What nobody expected – unless Oisin Murphy might have had an inkling, judged on his post-race comments about when he rode the horse a couple of weeks earlier – was the sort of performance that you rarely see in any flat race.

While there weren’t any superstars among the opposition, more than a few of them were anything but the proverbial trees. Nine and a half lengths was the verdict, so 11 career wins – 112 lengths in total, at ten lengths a time and no doubt we hope, much more to follow.

We’ll have to wait until midweek’s crucial schooling session for a decision. Nico de Boinville will be hoping that Nicky Henderson and owner Michael Buckley will agree with him to allow their extraordinary nine-year-old to return to his day job, before embarking on what could be a lucrative second career on the flat.

As a jumps trainer – not merely any jumps trainer but one who has won nine Champion Hurdle races and pretty much everything else – Henderson would no doubt love to make it a round ten. He’s 75 now, yet there’s no diminution in the ambition nor the uncanny knack of getting his horse right on the big day.

In some ways Southwell on Friday was a big day.  The Arena publicity machine (and Simon Mapletoft on Sky Sports Racing – I didn’t watch ITV) was in full volume afterwards, talking up the “tremendous crowd”. I suppose 3,800 is a lot for a Friday night at Southwell. I’ve been there when you’d struggle to find 300 – including staff and jockeys!

There was no disguising the excitement though as Oisin and the wonderful gelding returned to weigh in. He had overcome so many new experiences. First time in starting stalls, a first time on a Tapeta surface, and, of course, the first time he didn’t need to jump an obstacle.

I know Oisin has experience over jumps. He was fulfilling an ambition when he rode the six-year-old Ike Sport for Neil Mulholland on Boxing Day 2024 at Wincanton. The pair never got involved and Oisin eventually pulled up his mount. No doubt he’ll be at Cheltenham as a guest of Michael Buckley and probably hoping Nico forgets to set his alarm and a substitute rider is needed.

Incidentally, my host at the Cheltenham preview last year was involved with Buckley in a Cheltenham Festival winner trained by Nicky Henderson. They were among the members of the Men In Our Position Syndicate that also included Victor Chandler.

We talk of the correlation between hurdles and flat race abilities in handicap terms as being between 45 and 50lb. Constitution Hill is a 170-rated jumper, so there’s no reason why that couldn’t translate as a 120ish flat horse. Initial estimates of the worth of the single romp at Southwell has him already well into the low 100s and if he’d have had another furlong, say, to travel, he’d have won by at least 15 lengths, so you can add a few pounds to that!

What would you do if you were Michael Buckley? He has already stated that he wouldn’t mind having a crack at the Melbourne Cup. Two miles on fast ground? Maybe.

If he did go to Melbourne and won, he would eclipse the record age of a winner. Joseph O’Brien sent the eight-year-old Twilight Payment to win the 2020 race and he thereby joined Toryboy in 1865 and the 1938 victor Catalogue as the joint-oldest winner.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong yesterday, local history was made as Ka Ying Rising made it 18 wins in a row in the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup, taking the £693k Group 1 race by an easy three and a half lengths under Zac Purton, smashing the track record in the process.

The David Hayes-trained five-year-old beat the previous record of 17 in succession set by another great local hero, Silent Witness. He started at 1/20 and Hong Kong racegoers who like to back a favourite would never have had much doubt that he would triumph yet again. The question now is, how far can he stretch the elastic?

Reverting to what could await Constitution Hill when he does turn to a flat-race programme, there is no bar on older horses being successful on the level. Hughie Morrison’s Alcazar was at his best as a ten-year-old when his crowning glory was victory in the Prix Royal Oak (Group 1) at Longchamp under Micky Fenton.

My memory is not always accurate, but I do believe that a 12-year-old hurdler called Beau Caprice won a division of the Gloucestershire Hurdle, forerunner of the Supreme and run in the old days in two divisions, in 1966. I think he was trained by Fulke Walwyn. [He was – Ed.]

But I cannot remember any nine-year-old winning a flat race first time out, certainly not one of this quality and by such a wide margin. Even if de Boinville gets his way and Constitution Hill does run at Cheltenham in a couple of weeks’ time, that surely will be the finale to his stellar jumping career, but one which with luck might have already equalled the feat of such as Istabraq with his three in succession.

- TS

Monday Musings: Saudi Riches

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You might wonder whether the dream of Saudi Arabia’s rulers to dominate the world’s most watched sports at the highest level is wearing a little thin, writes Tony Stafford. Golfers and soccer players have been enticed by unfathomably large sums to join the Liv Tour and Saudi Pro League respectively, but even after no more than a year or two in some cases disillusionment is setting in.

In the Kingdom, horse racing’s attention is largely on one day and specifically one race. Last Saturday was the seventh instalment of the Saudi Cup, run on dirt over a mile and a furlong of the Riyadh racecourse at Janadriyah. A field of 13 included three Japanese competitors, six horses from the US and was filled out with a quartet of generally outclassed locals.

The race had a prize fund totalling £15 million, but despite facing decent opposition, the favourite and defending champion Forever Young started as short as 1/3 and duly did the business for owner Susumu Fujita, trainer Yoshito Yahagi and jockey Ryusei Sakai. The trainer also won the race in 2023 with Panthalassa.

Forever Young shared top spot in the dirt-race section of the 2025 International Classification with the US-trained three-year-old Sovereignty. Their mark of 128 was 2lb inferior to the overall champion, the French-trained turf specialist Calandagan, who was boosted to that mark when winning the Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse in late November.

Saturday’s opposition to Forever Young was headed by the Bob Baffert-trained Nysos, a far from negligible performer who had won six of his seven previous starts. One of those was at Grade 1 level and his sole defeat until the Saudi Cup was also at that level and then by only a neck.

His rating going into the race was 119, 9lb inferior to Forever Young’s, but after the one-length defeat, he is certain to have his mark adjusted upwards. The pair were almost four lengths in advance of the best of the rest, the Wathnan Racing-owned but US-trained Tumbarumba, partnered by Wathnan’s retained rider James Doyle.

Here’s the time to mention the lavish prizes. The winner collected £7,407,407; Nysos earned £2,592,592; Tumbarumba pocketed £1,481,481; fourth-home Bishops Bay (US) takes home £1,111,111. £740,740 was the prize for Japan’s fifth-placed Luxor Café, while Sunrise Zipangu, the next-home under Oisin Murphy, lifted £444,444. Murphy has often been associated with Japanese runners in international events over the years.

The money went all the way down to 10th place. That position was held by one of the home contingent, Ameerat Alzamaan. It was well worth Ryan Moore’s time to travel over to Saudi Arabia, his mount earning £148,148.

Those massive figures explain what happens when the best part of £30 million in overall stakes is available. Do the authorities at the top in the Kingdon continue to feel that the £30 million for one day is value for money? As long as they do, the “have saddle will travel” community will be happy to join the party.

Moore, Murphy and Doyle are among that small group of UK-based riders (also including the absent Willliam Buick) at the forefront of the world’s jockeys and all three will return home with nicely enhanced bank balances. I’m not sure whether they cop the imagined ten per cent of total prizemoney in Saudi but even if it is a mere five per cent, it would represent a great way to divest the costs of family Christmases.

Overall, Murphy held sway, his £2 million and a bit total bolstered by two wins, in a Listed race (£370k) and more spectacularly in the £1,333k Turf Cup over ten and a half furlongs on the Karl Burke-trained Royal Champion.

Moore was third here on George Boughey’s Survie, carrying the Doreen Tabor colours, and the resulting £222k contributed to Ryan’s £700k haul on the afternoon. Later he teamed up with Tom Clover’s Tabletalk in the 1m7f Turf Handicap, bettered only here by Joseph O’Brien’s Sons And Lovers ridden by Dylan Browne McMonagle. The Irish team’s reward? A cool £1.1 million.

Doyle’s nearest to a win came on the French-trained, Wathnan-owned speed merchant Lazzat, but he couldn’t match the US performer Reef Runner, trained in Florida by David Fawkes.

Another septet of UK jockeys was recruited mostly for a single mount and again normally without making an impact. David Loughnane and Danny Tudhope got lucratively among the place prizes once each, while the other five, namely Pat Dobbs, moving across from his winter base in Dubai, Jason Watson, Pat Cosgrave, Callum Shepherd and P J McDonald all went without a prize, but could well have been paid a guaranteed fee to attend.

Many years ago, when Saudi Arabia was just getting acquainted with organising top-class international sports events, a golf tournament’s first prize was exceeded many times over by the appearance money paid to Justin Rose.

**

We’re in that period of the season when most trainers will be holding their breath with Cheltenham in mind. One who will be going there with optimism is Ben Pauling after Saturday’s wonderful hat-trick in the first three races on the Ascot card. Novice hurdler Mondoui’boy; The Jukebox Kid, comfortably in the Reynoldstown Chase; and Fiercely Proud in the day’s featured handicap hurdle all won well to show his team is right at the top of its form.

Pauling is involved at the six-day stage in one of the most compelling events of the winter – and it’s a flat race at Southwell on Friday. With £40k added, it’s the “Let’s do Nicky Henderson and Michael Buckley a Favour novice stakes”, a race for four-year-olds and upwards over 1m4f.

Hughie Morrison was speaking to me about it the other day and mentioned that with that amount of money, it cannot be divided, and 32 horses were entered, with a maximum field of only 14 able to run. For a day Nicky must have been nervous that Constitution Hill could have a low ballot number and miss the gig.

I know loads of trainers who routinely get what they describe as “crap draws”, but the boffins (or AI maybe nowadays) that programme the machine that spews out the ballot order the day after entries, thus yesterday, gave Constitution Hill number 16 so only two of the 32 need to come out.

One bookmaker’s odds I saw had the former Champion Hurdler as the 4/6 favourite. Kevin Phillipart De Foy’s Amo Racing-owned Square Necker, a winner at Dundalk in December, is next best at 7/4 with Willie Mullins’ Daddy Long Legs, a 152-rated hurdler, next best at 7/2.

If you think I begrudge the Seven Barrows team being helped to find a non-jumps race for Constitution Hill’s quest to regain his Champion Hurdle crown, far from it.

Sixteen years ago, the season after his 2009 Champion Hurdle success, Nicky was struggling to find a suitable prep for Punjabi. Kempton was persuaded to stage an £8k to the winner hurdle race with advantageous terms, also at the end of February. Punjabi started 1/6 and won by 12 lengths, but his wind gave out in the big race a few days later and stablemate Binocular gained his revenge.

Ray Tooth’s star performer was never the same again. The year after Binocular’s Champion Hurdle win, Sandown provided another “gift” for him. It was gladly accepted at 1/10 but again a second title victory proved beyond the J P McManus star.

- TS

Monday Musings: Make A Stand

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Come on Paul, make a stand, writes Tony Stafford. Persuade owner Colm Donlon to pay the £18,000 supplementary fee and put Tutti Quanti in next month’s Champion Hurdle! In some ways the parallels are obvious. On February 8th 1997, Make A Stand, ridden by A P McCoy made all to win the Tote Gold Trophy in a one-two for the Martin Pipe stable, beating stablemate Hamilton Silk by nine lengths, dominating his 17 opponents with ease.

He carried 11st7lb off a mark of 140, which included a 4lb penalty for his previous success at Kempton in the Lanzarote Handicap Hurdle, then a two-mile race rather than its five furlongs longer identity these days. The following month he won the Champion Hurdle in similar fashion.

Tutti Quanti on Saturday, like Make A Stand 29 years earlier, was immediately taken to the front by Harry Cobden, accompanied by a couple of over-optimistic opponents. The trio was quickly clear of the rest of the 15-runner field. Then by the turn into the straight, the die was already cast. Moving smoothly, Tutti Quanti, despite 12st top weight for his mark of 138, was the only horse not already struggling in the very testing ground.

His advantage began inexorably to extend from Wellington Arch, who had taken second place by that point. Then up the long home straight, seemingly after little effort from the horse and certainly minimal energy from his rider, he had that gallant pursuer 15 lengths adrift by the line. I reckon it could have been nearer 25 lengths had Harry wished.

Astonishingly, the second was another 18 lengths clear of a trio that fought a slow-motion tussle for the honour of third (and not inconsiderable prize of £18k). It went to 7lb claiming amateur Miss Heidi Palin on 33/1 shot Faivoir, trained by Dan Skelton. Skelton also provided the race favourite, heavily backed Let It Rain, but she pulled up.

We were still finding difficulty at the time of Make A Stand’s success in calling the race anything other than the “Schweppes”, even though the Tote had taken over its sponsorship a decade earlier in 1986. Some, including me, hark back to the old days far too frequently. Sir Rupert Mackeson, the veteran bookseller, even referred to “Schweppes weekend” in his email on Saturday morning, 40 years after the soft drinks firm had abandoned ship!

The race was instigated in 1963 as one of the earlier lucrative commercial race sponsorships in UK racing and was staged once at Aintree before moving to its subsequent home of Newbury. It was quickly made famous and as much notorious through the exploits of the Findon, Sussex-based master trainer and former wartime Commando, Captain Ryan Price.

Ho won the first two with Rosyth, whose second success resulted in a six-week ban for his trainer following a dodgy prep run for his horse. Le Vermontois’ triumph involved no such scandal.

On that February Saturday in 1967, I was walking up (or was it down?) a hill in Northumberland with a transistor radio glued to my ear. I was there to cover the FA Amateur Cup quarter final between Whitley Bay and Walthamstow Avenue - the event and the Avenue both long sadly confined to the dustbin of history. We won, by the way, but were knocked out in the semi-final.

A couple of the local press guys – I worked that year at the Walthamstow Guardian, my first job on a newspaper - travelled in the team coach to their away matches. Following home games at Gander Green Lane, we routinely got to join the players for dinner in Jim Gill’s restaurant at the bottom of Walthamstow High Street.

I listened as Hill House easily made it four wins from the first five runnings of the race for Price. Even with the questionable acoustics, the boos that rained down from the stands could be clearly heard even above Peter Bromley’s spirited commentary.

Hill House had refused to race at Kempton two weeks before the big day and then was only fourth at Sandown the previous weekend, most professionals reckoning he had a typical “easy”. In the Schweppes, Hill House duly strode clear to win by 12 lengths, returning to a crescendo of booing. Price’s wife Dorothy vowed never to go racing again – and never did.

A subsequent inquiry found that Hill House had tested positive for cortisone, a banned substance but then further tests found evidence he manufactured his own cortisone. The matter ended there, but not the stigma to Captain Price.

Normal service resumed the following year when Persian War, a five-year-old trained in Wales by Colin Davies, ridden by Jimmy Uttley and owned by bookmaker Henry Alper, set a weight-carrying record of 11st13lb. The historians had not immediately realised that near 60-year record had finally been expunged from the books by Tutti Quanti’s winning under 12st on Saturday.

Persian War went on to win the Champion Hurdle that March and twice more before being relegated to second place behind Bula, another outstanding champion of that vintage era. Bula was trained by Fred Winter.

Persian War had been a slowcoach on the flat but was transformed by jumping when his stamina was a major contributor to his success. Make A Stand, like Persian War, started on the flat. He was a son of Master Willie and was in training with Henry Candy.

Make A Stand won a 23-runner nursery at Newmarket off 74, but by the time he turned up for a claiming race at Leicester in August the following summer, his mark had declined to 52 – the handicappers were a little more understanding in those days. You’d need to run 30 times now rather than Make A Stand’s six to drop that far! He did win that 1m4f race with ease, and the next time he ran was for Pipe, two unsuccessful flat-race outings finishing his three-year-old activity. I wanted to check the Racing Post’s analysis for the Leicester claimer, but 32 years on, we’re still waiting!

Make A Stand was fast away the following year when initially put to hurdles, winning three in a row, before Martin also exploited his still modest flat mark. By the time he got to the Tote Gold Trophy, he was the veteran of 27 races and came to Newbury fresh from three consecutive handicap hurdles victories at Sandown, Ascot and Kempton. There was never much doubt that number four would be in the bag. It wasn’t!

In the Champion Hurdle he beat a field that included the previous year’s winner Collier Bay, and in a hint of what was to come, a youthful Aidan O’Brien sent out the 33/1 runner-up Theatreworld. Aidan was to win the next three championships with the peerless Istabraq.

Tutti Quanti was hardly coming out from left field on Saturday. He had comfortably won the Gerry Feilden Hurdle over the same course and distance in November and on the morning of the race, Nicholls told Cobden he was extremely confident. He was the 100/30 second-favourite.

Why then, after such an overwhelming success in one of the most competitive (usually) handicap hurdles of the season, shouldn’t he go down the Persian War and Make A Stand route?

For an investment of £18k, the potential win prize of £252,315 represents around 14/1 for his money – albeit the owner’s portion is more like 70 per cent. Still, you’d be making a lot of people, including trainer, jockey and stable staff, happy if it happened; and Donlon picked up a healthy £87k on Saturday, so he starts from a position of strength.

They have until March 4, six days before the race to decide and the weather in the meantime will be a major factor in the decision. I remember in 1986 desperately wanting rain for a horse of mine that was fancied for the Triumph Hurdle, and the whole previous six weeks were cold and dry. Could be the same over the next three weeks, though unlikely if recent weather is to go by, but as I say, Colm doesn’t need to decide yet.

The most significant performance of the week, apart from Tutti Quanti, was the win of Lulamba in the Game Spirit Chase. Having effectively had only one and a half previous runs over fences (low sun ruled out six fences on debut), Nicky Henderson’s novice was far too good for more experienced chasers at Newbury. I think he can emulate Sprinter Sacre and Altior and go on to win the Arkle at Cheltenham next month.

- TS

Monday Musings: A Short Delay

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Normally we would have had both days of the Dublin Racing Festival to reflect upon this not so bright Monday morning, but it’s rather like the 1997 Grand National, writes Tony Stafford. Then, at the height of the IRA’s bombing campaign in the UK, a bomb threat led to 60,000 racegoers (including me) being evacuated from Aintree.

The race was delayed for 49 hours to the following Monday and those that could – unfortunately I couldn’t – reconvened for a single race off at 5.00 p.m. in the afternoon.

Naturally, my original tip for the race, Lord Gyllene, owned by Sir Stanley Clarke, also owner of Uttoxeter racecourse, trained by Steve Brookshaw and ridden by Tony Dobbin won the 36-runner race and its £178k prize by 25 lengths from Charlie Brooks’ Suny Bay. He started 14/1 and I don’t think I backed it!

This weekend the only villain of the piece was the ground on Saturday morning for the opening instalment of what is best known as the Willie Mullins Benefit Weekend. That card was rescheduled for today and in view of the lead up to yesterday’s programme, the ground didn’t look too bad.

The great man did win two of the Grade 1 races on the card, impressive scorers for the JP McManus/Mark Walsh team that will soon be dissolved when Harry Cobden takes over the job as his stable rider in the two countries.

First, in the Ladbrokes Novice Chase over 2m5 1/2f, Kaid d’Authie (5/1) rather than Mullins’ hotpot Final Demand (100/30 on) took the spoils. Willie had supplied three of the four runners. Then in the Ladbrokes Dublin Chase (2m1f) Majborough dispelled any fears about his technique over fences. He made all to beat favourite and last year’s Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Marine Nationale by 19 lengths with an exhilarating display of front-running and fast jumping.

Majborough is now the deserved favourite for this year’s Queen Mother Champion Chase and there isn’t much that can happen in the six weeks that remain before the Festival to remove him from that position.

Mullins then had a later, and possibly even more unexpected reverse, with 10/11 shot Lossiemouth, regarded in many places as the likely Champion Hurdle winner next month following the departure from calculations of Sir Gino last weekend. In what looked beforehand a virtual match race for the Timeless Sash Windows Irish Champion Hurdle – great sponsorship that! - Lossiemouth was never going as well and was unable to match the finishing verve of Gordon Elliott’s Brighterdaysahead. That market rival was thus emphatically reversing the one-length Christmas defeat by Lossiemouth over the same course and distance.

Brighterdaysahead has now won ten of her 14 career starts. One reverse was when she failed to live up to second favouritism in last year’s Champion Hurdle, finishing a long way behind Golden Ace in fourth, a placing that even flattered her on the day.

It was won with a fair portion of good fortune by that seven-year-old mare, trained by Jeremy Scott. If anything, Golden Ace has improved her profile since. First, she ran a fine second at Punchestown last spring behind State Man, who had been denied a second Champion Hurdle victory when falling in a clear lead at the final hurdle last March. The margin of just over four lengths at Punchestown suggested Golden Ace was progressing. A gritty win in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle and second to Sir Gino in the Christmas Hurdle show her continuing improvement.

State Man is another absentee this time around. We could still be seeing the 2023 champion Constitution Hill if he comes through that tantalising hurdle-avoiding gallop round Southwell on Friday evening the 20th of this month. It’s strategically placed timing-wise before the big race, Southwell having grafted Hendo’s star’s target onto an original seven-race Friday night card.

Including that new race, there’s a total of £245k on offer during the evening, and Constitution Hill’s event could hardly have been more sensitively framed. It’s a 4yos and upwards novice over 1m4f. I hope there are some nice animals to make Constitution Hill work for the £21k first prize. Make a note in your diary, 5.00 p.m. off time, first leg of that Friday night bonanza.

He is down to a 6/1 chance, despite that litany of falls in his latest appearances. Brighterdaysahead and Dan Skelton’s The New Lion, workmanlike at Cheltenham the previous weekend, vie for favouritism, with Constitution Hill coming next. Such is the paucity of serious contenders at this stage, Lossiemouth is still fourth favourite with Golden Ace just behind her.

Brighterdaysahead and Lossiemouth are age seven. I remember when Ruby Walsh was talking on ITV the other day, he pointed out that Lossiemouth also has the mares’ race as a Cheltenham option – and that was before yesterday’s disappointment. I wouldn’t be too surprised if Willie decides on that course of action.

Now you know I love a statistic, even if as the Editor will be the first to point out, my interpretation is not always flawless. Mullins was matched for winners yesterday by Gordon Elliott who also picked up a valuable handicap hurdle with Bowensonfire (10/1). The UK champion jockey of that name, Sean Bowen, making his first visit to Leopardstown, is indeed “on fire” and he didn’t waste any time getting a winner. He was on Backmersackme who took another nice €88k’s worth for the Emmet Mullins’ (Willie’s nephew) stable.

Sorry Sean, you slipped in there before I could illustrate again what an unbalanced affair top Irish jumps racing is – as if it wasn’t already obvious. Yesterday Wilie Mullins had 32 runners on the card while Gordon Elliott had just the meagre ten, so 42 between them from a total of 96 on the day.

Today, Willie has 19 declared to Gordon’s 23, so between them 42 of 77, and over the two days 84 from 173, slightly more than 48 per cent. I think that’s ridiculous.

Willie’s UK raids continue to be hit-and-miss. On Saturday, impressive Kempton Christmas winner Kitzbuhel was widely expected to dominate Sandown’s Scilly Isles Novices Chase. Perhaps it was being denied an early lead that unsettled him, with the Fergal O’Brien-trained Sixmilebridge setting a fast pace in front. He never looked in danger of defeat once the favourite and a re-routed Paul Townend checked out at the sixth fence, where the rider was unseated after some poor right-handed leaps.

As I’ve already awarded the trainers’ championship to Dan Skelton, who sensibly kept away from Leopardstown, I must report over the past two weeks he’s had 20 winners from 54 runners, barely half Mullins and Elliott will have jointly sent out over two days in Dublin. Now past £3 million, it’s time to toast a great young force in the training ranks.

- TS

Monday Musings: A Bit of a Joke…

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Windsor’s Fitzdares Fleur de Lys Chase on Sunday carried £165,000 in total prizemoney, writes Tony Stafford. As such it was on a par with the previous day’s Clarence House Chase at Ascot, the two events providing the top two features on three days of Berkshire’s Winter Millions, began on Friday at the Thames-side course.

I say on a par, but as only two completed the course at Ascot, it meant between them they collected £165k. In the old days, prizes for non-completions or short fields used to be shared out with the ones that did complete. There’s no such largesse nowadays.

The even-money favourite Protektorat, trained by Dan Skelton, won the race 12 months ago in a common canter, despite being penalised 8lb for his Grade 1 success in the 2024 Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham where Envoi Allen was the runner-up.

He followed that Windsor victory with a good second to Jonbon, four lengths behind Nicky Henderson’s horse at Aintree. If anyone doubted Jonbon’s worth, his repeat win in the Clarence House a day earlier would have reminded them of his honourable never-out-of-the-first-two career.

I know that steeplechases over two miles, six furlongs take plenty of jumping, but the fact that Protektorat started at even money and was available at odds against for a while in pre-race betting, must rank as the value bet, certainly of the meeting, and probably this season.

Why? Well, while winning the Fleur de Lys carrying the maximum penalty last year, he weirdly escaped one for the second running on the race. Top marks to the Skelton team for noticing the rules aberration.

Protektorat faced four opponents and while he now had bottom weight, Ben Pauling’s Handstands, the Twiston-Davies’ Matata and Olly Murphy’s Resplendent Grey all carried a penalty. I suggest the race conditions are a joke!

The key date, for what obscure reason, was September 30, 2024. A winner of a Grade 1 or Grade 2 chase after that date gets 8lb; one winning a Premier Handicap (as in the case of Resplendent Grey in the bet 365 Chase at Sandown last year, and Matata at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day this month), a Grade 3 or Listed gets 4lb.

Handstands was a star novice for Ben Pauling last season, winning a Grade 1 and a Grade 2. On official ratings on these terms he had a monstrous 19lb to find with the Skelton horse, so when Ben Jones sent him past the front-running favourite going to the fourth-last fence at the head of the straight, he looked to be putting himself right in the top flight of steeplechasers.

I love the Windsor chase course with its long run-in and, for once over a golden weekend for Jones, he probably made his move a little early. That gave Harry Skelton time to gather his willing horse and conjure a rally from that 11-year-old partner, such that he had regained the lead between the last two fences.

It was hard work all the way to the line, especially with Resplendent Grey bringing out the stamina that won him the Sandown three-and-a-half miler in the spring, but Protektorat kept going for a near four-length win with the Murphy horse a couple to the good over Handstands.

I don’t know who framed the Fleu de Lys conditions: it carries the official designation of a Class 2 contest, with no Graded status. The quality of this field (and last year’s) and the lavish prize money surely demand its promotion next time round.

I referred to Ben Jones’ superb week. He won on both his rides at Windsor on Friday, including on the Emma Lavelle-trained Bluey in the featured mares’ chase, before clicking on his first two rides at Ascot on Saturday when The Jukebox Kid showed he was on an upward curve, if not quite as steep as stablemate The Jukebox Man’s!

Then half an hour after the Fleur de Lys, Jones did it the other way around, pulling back several lengths from the last fence to win the 3m4f handicap chase on Neo King for the Evan Williams yard.

Not to be outdone, Harry Skelton responded in kind in the finale, a high-grade bumper, coming from off the pace to swamp his rivals for speed and win at 12/1. That made it a 67/1 treble on the day for the Skelton team and, more significantly, added another £125k to their spectacular tally.

I mentioned that Jonbon won the Clarence House Chase. But it needed a superequine effort from the horse to claw back the lead that the Skelton runner Thistle Ask had initiated from the start. Winner before Saturday of four in a row, all handicaps and the last three since being acquired for only £11k when he came up for sale last year upon the retirement from training of James Ewart, his mark had gone from 108 to 158 in that time.

Now he faces another upgrade as he was within three lengths of Jonbon at the line and as Nicky Henderson admitted afterwards, it was stamina that won him the day over this probably now insufficient trip of two miles.

Jonbon, extraordinarily in a four-horse race was allowed to start at 6/1. True, he had been easily beaten last time out in the Tingle Creek at Sandown by Saturday’s favourite, Willie Mullins’ Il Etait Temps, but that was the biggest price Jonbon has ever started, Il Etait Temps no doubt being regarded as invincible at 2/5 in the market.

Maybe it was Thistle Act’s bold jumping and sustained pace that troubled him, but Il Etait Temps never looked like getting to the leader and he came down heavily two from home. Happily, it seemed it was merely tiredness and nothing worse, but from 5/2 for the Queen Mother Champion Chase he is now out to 8/1. Willie has others to fill in for him, no doubt.

The £51k that Thistle Art earned his connections, added to yesterday’s haul, has Skelton rapidly approaching the £3 million mark for the season. It was after the last-day turnaround when the Mullins team swamped Dan at Sandown that either Willie or son Patrick stated they would be targeting many more ordinary UK race meetings in the upcoming season. With that in mind, Patrick was dispatched from Co Carlow to the far east of the country yesterday, to Fakenham, to ride a couple of “steering jobs”.

In a 2m4f maiden hurdle, Clay Pigeons, who had already come across to Catterick to win a bumper, started 4/11 but was no match for Olly Murphy’s King Jon Oliver, the 5/2 second favourite. Then 2/1 on shot Lultimatom, was rolled over by – you guessed it – the Skeltons’ 13/2 chance Eastern Fire, ridden by Tristan Durrell.

As at Windsor, the Skelton team bagged another treble, all ridden by Tristan. If you got all six of the Skelton winers in an accumulator, it works out (or so my computer says), at 21,114/1; but if you did have it you were lucky as 13/2  shot Miss Cynthia was a long way behind Princess Keri at the final flight of the day’s feature when that mare’s rider Ned Fox got unbalanced after the obstacle and came off.

Mullins senior did collect the two Grade 2 races at Thurles yesterday, Jade De Grugy (1/7) picked up €29k for a school round under Paul Townend, who added a second success on Appreciate It, the even-money favourite, in a race where his trainer had four of the five runners and took the first three places.

The fates of his two UK runners over the weekend coincided with, if not a seriously worrying period for the trainer, certainly one with more reverses than expected. Over the past two weeks, Mullins has sent out 18 winners, but an astonishing nine odds-on chances in that time have bit the dust.

Maybe Cheltenham 2026 might be less of a one-sided battle between the Irish and the home team. Everyone was vastly impressed by Nicky Henderson’s Haydock winner Old Park Star in the Rossington Main Novices’ Hurdle. He made all to win the Grade 2 by 18 lengths under Nico de Boinville in the style of, dare we suggest it, Constitution Hill. How does the old boy continue to find them?

- TS

Monday Musings: Early Payout for Skelton

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I’m sure I’ve gone over this ground a time or two before but last week’s irritating cold weather snap has inevitably slowed down the workings of this ancient brain, writes Tony Stafford. I intend to show, in the manner of a Paddy Power early payout when a team goes two goals up, that Dan Skelton has already won the 2025/26 British Jump Trainers’ Championship.

Many thought he would win it last time round, but Willie Mullins sent a flotilla of his best horses to Sandown on the final day of last season and ended up foiling him by almost £200k – Mullins’ £3,570k to Skelton’s £3,377k. It seems emphatic, but until Mullins had that near clean sweep of the lavish £1 million Grand National prize – his 1-2-3 collecting £800k and 5th and 7th another £60k – he wasn’t seemingly even contemplating a challenge.

Of course, Mullins is good at making up lost ground in the second half of the season, which is pretty much where we are now, as his rival Gordon Ellliott would frustratingly testify.

Before yesterday at home Mullins was reasonably in touch with Elliott, whose 275 individual horses had clocked up €3,150k from 134 wins and numerous places. Mullins’ individual 228 had notched 106 wins and €2,289k. Elliott’s best of €4,744k in 2023/24 compares unfavourably with Mullins’ peak of €7,299 in 2022/23. Willie’s haul last season was €6,028k, almost exactly €2 million more than his rival.

In the UK though, it will take not just a herculean effort to target the big prizes, in some part to the detriment of looking after business at home, for him even to begin to look a danger to Skelton.

The nearest four players behind Dan are multiple champions Paul Nicholls in second and Nicky Henderson in fifth, with in between the fast-progressing Olly Murphy and Ben Pauling. Nicholls at £1,116k, Murphy and Pauling are both above the £1 million mark, but even then, hopelessly out of touch with Skelton. I don’t remember anything so one-sided ever before.

With the most lucrative part of the season still to come, Skelton, on £2,470k, is already around 65% of the way to last year’s personal best return. Mullins is trailing more than £2 million behind him after the Irish champion’s so-far meagre return of £278k from four winning horses.

Unless he matches or exceeds last year’s Grand National Trifecta, it’s hard to see where he can begin to stem the tide of the Warwickshire onslaught, which has already produced 111 wins for the season. Only once before has he exceeded 200, in the days a few years back when he targeted summer jumping. That’s no longer on the agenda – it’s class and quality over quantity these days.

Saturday’s impressive performance at Kempton under a 10lb penalty from Precious Man could well be significant as the big 4yo prizes come along.

This second win for the team after he was snapped up from under the noses of the Mullins/Kirk buying partnership from France last summer puts him firmly in as a challenger to the no-doubt formidable array of Mullins juveniles from the same source that will be in the Triumph Hurdle line-up in eight weeks’ time.

The Skeltons have targeted the three days of the Winter Racing Festival at Windsor and Ascot over the coming weekend for a concerted aim at solidifying their already commanding lead.

Windsor on Friday offers seven races worth a total of £415k and Skelton has a dozen entered in five of those contests. Ascot on Saturday and then back to Windsor for Sunday, there are similar cards with almost precisely the same amount of cash to be won – in all £1.25 million for the 21 races.

I always loved going jumping at Windsor in the old days, particularly enjoying the New Year’s Day Hurdle which was a serious trial for the Champion Hurdle. I was unsure whether last season’s initial go at jumping after so many years away from the Calendar was a success, but any gremlins with the track seemed to have been ironed out when they staged the first fixture of the 2025/26 season in late November. I’m looking forward to a midwinter feast this weekend.

The promised ease in the weather over the coming days will ensure a strong entry for all those races and the Skelton runners will face determined opposition throughout the weekend. It’s hard to escape the feeling though that Dan and jockey brother Harry have elevated themselves onto a higher plane, their defeats at the hands of Mullins merely doubling their resolve.

**

I was very sad to hear the news of problems at Chelmsford City racecourse, struggling with a serious loss on the past financial year leading to a reported delay in full payment of staff on the days leading up to Christmas.

Chelmsford isn’t everyone’s favourite track, but it’s handy to get to for racegoers in East London in particular and all over Essex. The grandstand might be facing the “wrong way” and unless you go along to the winning line and combine that with watching on the big screen, much of what happens around the circuit can be hard, actually impossible, to follow.

Trainers from Newmarket love its proximity, just down the M11, but those around Lambourn can be subjected to harrowing journeys when the M4, M25 and the M11 North are playing up, sometimes all at once!

With only a single way in, it was always tricky for the track when it hosted well-attended (sometimes up to even 30,000) music events, but when Justin Timberlake appeared last summer the whole thing ground to a halt after his performance with cars stuck in the car park for hours and the adjacent road connecting the City of Chelmsford to the A120 similarly blocked for ages.

That brought a severe sanction on the number of people that would be allowed at any fixture, 10,000 I believe, effectively stifling the wonderful work done by Neil Graham and his staff. I’ve known Neil since he trained out of the yard in Newmarket adjacent to the Tattersalls sales paddocks, when he had horses in the yard for the Thoroughbred Corporation.

He knows his stuff and is a very nice man to boot. I hope Chelmsford’s troubles will soon be sorted. They’ve fought back before and hopefully will do so again. I always enjoy going there and wish I’d been free to go yesterday, but late additions to the schedule aren’t always easy.

It’s a place where horses can build up impressive winning sequences and my pal Mick Godderidge, a shareholder in the now six-year-old Carlton, saw the horse win six times from seven runs at the track between December 2024 and last September for James Owen. No doubt he’ll add to that tally over this winter.

- TS

Monday Musings: Top Jockeys

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Much has been made in recent days about the 21st Century record that Billy Loughnane snatched from the grasp of Kieren Fallon on the final day of 2025, writes Tony Stafford. His single winner, the classy Enemy from the Ian Williams stable, won a £15k first prize at Southwell on Thursday which put Loughnane on 222 for the calendar year, exceeding Fallon’s best, set in 2003.

Fallon won the jockeys’ title six times, the final one in that year when 207 of the wins came in the prescribed period of the championship. The sextet was interrupted midway through in 2000 by Kevin Darley.

Billy would have had a more arduous task to secure the record at the tender age of 19 had Oisin Murphy bothered to stay in the UK for the conclusion of the 2024 season. Murphy and I had a chat at York’s Ebor meeting that August when I suggested that at his then rate of progress, he could even have bettered the record of Sir Gordon Richards, who collected 269 wins in 1947. That was the 20th of Gordon’s 26 championships.

Oisin decided not to stay in the UK, instead chasing the big prizes available to the top riders around the world. He still ended the year with 217. His best to date is 220 in 2019.

Richards missed out on the title three times, to Tommy Weston 100 years ago, Freddie Fox in 1930 and Harry Wragg in 1941. He achieved a lifetime ambition by finally ending his Derby hoodoo in that Coronation year on Pinza. He then broke his pelvis in a fall in the Sandown Park paddock the following summer and retired with 4,870 career wins to his credit. He subsequently enjoyed solid success as a trainer when Lady Beaverbrook was his most important client.

In more recent times, only AP McCoy, of course over jumps, has managed anything comparable, with 20 consecutive titles. His first was as a conditional rider in 1995/96 when based with Toby Balding, whose brother Ian, trainer of Mill Reef, sadly died last week.

AP’s last title came in 2014/15. He habitually broke the 200-winner mark each season, with a peak of 289, thereby considerably exceeding Richards’ best, in 2001/02. The latest champion, Sean Bowen, seems to have been made in McCoy’s single-minded mould. Riding for the prolific and upwardly mobile Olly Murphy, he looks to have a winner-providing source to match McCoy’s supply-line from Martin Pipe.

Bowen apparently sees “no reason why I couldn’t get to 300.” A little boastful maybe, but he won last season’s championship with ease with 180 wins and is already on 170 with almost a full four months to go – that’s 30-odd per month. He won’t want many cold spells to hinder that aim though.

Not an instant success, unlike McCoy and Loughnane, Sean Bowen has been developing his skills for around a decade, initially on now-retired father Peter’s horses. Peter has been succeeded with the licence by another son, Mickey, but is also the first port of call for many other top trainers, in addition to Olly Murphy.

Loughnane also got his riding education with a training father, Mark Loughnane, who normally sends out around 40 winners a year. Billy’s progress has been meteoric, going from six when first allowed to ride as as a 16-year-old in 2022, to 130, 162 and now 222.

Kieren Fallon has been able to watch the young man at close quarters as the former champion is a regular rider at Charlie Appleby’s yard, as is Loughnane. The teenager is the jockey of choice when Appleby needs an alternative when William Buick is otherwise engaged, usually at the main meeting of the day.

It’s a numbers game of course. To get to 222, Loughnane leant heavily on his boss George Boughey – 100 wins in 2025 – and gives great credit for his progress. In all he had 1,321 rides in 2025. Only twice did Kieren Fallon have more than 1,000 rides: 1,055 in his last title winning year and 1,109 for 200 in the following season.

Fallon describes Loughnane as “a guaranteed future champion that does all the right things.” Since the BHA restricted jockeys to riding at a single meeting in 2020 – I had thought it was longer ago than that – to help curb the spread of Covid 19, jockeys might have a quieter life, but the big numbers are less easy to be achieved.

Luke (have saddle will travel) Morris five times rode more than 1,500 horses in a year and despite the one-meeting restriction, he has still maintained at least 1,000 every campaign since 2010.

Fallon is also delighted his son Cieren is developing nicely, helped by a connection with William Haggas. He rode 136 winners despite having not much more than half of Loughnane’s rides (721 last year). Haggas has given him a Group 1 winner in Montassib and the other two victories for him at the top level have been for Roger Teal with his stable star, the sprinter Oxted.

I had a nice day out on Saturday, leaving at an unconscionable hour to make the first race at Lingfield, and I wasn’t the only one. The owners’ room has around 25 big round tables, each with eight chairs and for the entire afternoon most were fully occupied, alongside some very decent food and a well-stocked and easily accessible bar.

Multiple ownership and friends thereof made for a terrific buzz and young Fallon had rides for both his previous Group 1 providers. I was there to represent the owners of recent Southwell winner Florida Suite, only allowed to take her chance after a good deal of agonising by her trainer.

“I think the track might be too sharp – she looked more of a stayer when she won at Southwell – and I’m not sure if the blinkers will work again.” Cieren was more hopeful, but as she toiled home last of six having drifted like a barge, as they say, Fallon reckons Newcastle would be more to her liking. A winning Starman filly, would you want to risk another poor run when a convenient sale is close at hand?

Fallon partnered the Roger Teal newcomer Pangbourne later and that youngster showed some promise for the future. The always-cheerful Roger had already won the opener with All Too Beautiful, completing a hat-trick under Jack Mitchell. That followed a dead-heat for first time handicapper Three Socks On at Chelmsford the previous day.

With so much ice to clear from my car windows before setting off for Lingfield, I was more than a little surprised when Sandown survived the winter snap to provide jumps action that same day. Those frost sheets do pay their way, although Wincanton and already cancelled Newcastle confirm them to be fallible.

Back in the owners’ room at Lingfield, the atmosphere was great. As was mentioned last week, crowds at the race meetings around Christmas and the New Year were very good. To some extent the rather idiosyncratic scheduling of Premier League matches probably didn’t hurt in that regard.

I’m now going to speak a foreign language where the Editor is concerned. [Qué? – Ed.] I stayed awake until late listening to our much-maligned cricketers making a bold riposte in Sydney, only condescending to close my eyes when an accursed thunderstorm ended play early.

Matt no doubt had been annoyed when Arsenal beat Bournemouth on Saturday night. Bournemouth could have scored at least five if things had gone their way. They didn’t. Sorry boss!

 - TS

Monday Musings: On Legacies…

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Amid all the thrilling performances over the Christmas period so far, I cannot shake from my consciousness Ben Pauling’s Mambonumberfive, writes Tony Stafford. I must confess I hated the song of that name when it was popular – maybe I’ll be a bit more charitable after Kempton on Saturday.

Using times as a guide to merit in jump racing is never foolproof, but when successive races on the same card, distance and discipline are concerned, you have a chance of getting a reasonable line to the form.

On Saturday at Kempton – shamefully destined soon to be another housing estate it seems – both Ben Pauling’s Mambonumberfive in the Wayward Lad Novices Chase and Dan Skelton’s Thistle Ask, top-weight in the Desert Orchid Handicap Chase, both Grade 2 events, immediately afterwards were easy winners. The time of the former at 4.47 seconds faster than the standard for the two miles at Kempton, was 0.42 seconds better than Thistle Art’s demolition job in the handicap.

Dan Skelton is considering the Queen Mother Champion Chase for his eight-year-old, winner of five of six chases, the last four all by at least a margin of seven lengths since Skelton took him over from the retired James Ewart this season. He won off 115 first time for Dan and was already up to 146 on Saturday, with a hike guaranteed well into the 150’s when the new ratings come out tomorrow.

This was a race where the pace was unrelenting – three horses goading each other at the front until Harry Skelton pushed the button and sent Thistle Ask away from the rest of the seven-horse field. He seemed to be quickening throughout the race, gathering pace once more as they approached the first of three fences in the straight.

Thistle Ask will be a nine-year-old if he lines up for the Champion Chase, but you need to have an attacking mindset if you want to see off Willie Mullins.

Despite all this, Ben Pauling, a day on from the emotion of The Jukebox Man, Harry Redknapp and all that, unearthed a chaser I contend of equal potential to his stable star.

When Mambonumberfive went through the Arqana sale ring last year for €450k, the obvious question about the three-year-old’s qualification for such a lofty price was, “how?”

He had been unable to win in three tries in juvenile hurdles at Auteuil for French jumps training ace Francois Nicolle with the final effort in June 2024, a month before his sale, being a second to Double-Green homebred Raffles Dolce Vita.

That horse has failed to win again in seven tries, latterly when switched to Ireland. His latest effort was a fourth of six to Gordon Elliott’s Romeo Coolio, beaten 31 lengths, at Fairyhouse late last month. His chance was mirrored by the starting price, 125/1!

While his stock plummeted, Mambonumberfive has flourished under Pauling, initially in three tries over hurdles, winning the second, a Grade 2 novice at Kempton, then switching as a four-year-old to chasing this autumn.

A horse of impressive size and scope, he immediately took to this new role, winning with a sustained finishing effort at Aintree and trumping that with a comfortable two-length defeat of Mighty Bandit at Newbury.

From novice handicaps, Ben switched him to this weight-for-age Grade 2 race against his elders. Five runners here and for most of the two miles Ben Jones allowed him to sit at the back, with a couple of slight errors confirming that position.

Then, as they turned for home, you could see him making quick progress, and by the second last he had got to the front. From the final fence he was travelling so well that he had put seven lengths between himself and runner-up Hansard, a solid performer for Gary and Josh Moore. From last place four from home to seven lengths clear and careering away at the line. All as a four-year-old, although he will be five on Thursday!

You’d have to give him a chance in the Arkle Chase at Cheltenham as he clearly handles going left-handed as well as Saturday’s romp the other way round, but it might be less certain that Cheltenham would suit him as well as Aintree with the long straight there to get him organised for that charge to the line.

The amazing elements for me about Saturday were less that he was quicker than a possible Queen Mother contender having loitered at the back of his field for so long, against the sustained gallop of Thistle Ask’s race, but that he could manage it with so little previous experience of chasing behind him.

If his enormous talent was evident, his stablemate The Jukebox Man exhibited the one attribute that apart from natural ability is most elusive in racehorses, courage and determination not to be beaten.

I well remember how in 2009 when Punjabi won his Champion Hurdle for Raymond Tooth and Nicky Henderson, he was in the middle of a three-horse thrust up the Cheltenham hill between Celestial Halo and Binocular, grittily holding on to the narrow lead he and Barry Geraghty had taken at the final flight.

Here, though, The Jukebox Man did even better as he was overtaken by last year’s King George VI Chase winner Banbridge at that point in the race. It seemed inevitable that he would succumb to that Joseph O’Brien horse’s speed from the last and that of the joint favourites, Willie Mullins’ Gaelic Warrior and Nicky Henderson’s Jango Baie who were also bang there; but he would have none of it.

As four horses strained for the line, suddenly in the dying strides, The Jukebox Man, in the middle under Ben Jones, had his head down at the crucial time, winning by noses from Banbridge and Gaelic Warrior with Jango Baie half a length away. It was a race that racing needed and if you listened to the ITV commentators, a win in the Harry Redknapp colours that was “great for racing”.

It was great for Harry Redknapp and the two Bens certainly, but here was a man in his late 70s, however well known to the public, winning a race. Would his win inspire young racegoers to take more of an interest in the sport? That seems fanciful. Big days, be they at Kempton and Chepstow, where we got a great home win for the Rebecca Curtis/Sean Bowen horse Haiti Couleurs in the Coral Welsh Grand National, inevitably engender great enthusiasm for the young people that attend.

I remember last autumn suggesting that Champions Day at Ascot had many more younger attendees than I’d ever recalled at any meeting, something Grand National winning rider Graham Thorner also noticed that day. Getting them to come back for say, an all-weather card at Kempton, is another matter. I wonder who would get their many all-weather fixtures if the sale did go through.

Kempton was one of the many tracks near London, including Newmarket, my dad took me to from about the age of eight. I’d become much more interested in racing by 1961 at age 15. I recall one Easter we watched the Kempton Guineas trials from the stand at the top of the straight, where they now keep the course equipment.

The horse he’d backed in the 1000 Trial was in front passing us and I was shocked when it didn’t make the frame. That was three from home, though, and a long way out for a mile race! Even so, I thought I knew a bit more about the game than he did – not that ever in my life I’ve matched his facility for successful punting for small stakes.

One day in my teens, I had brought a girl friend to the flat in the afternoon with both my parents out at work, expecting a clear couple of hours. We were in the early throes of getting involved when I heard the front door opening. With a face like thunder, he took one look at the slight clothing disarray, went into his bedroom and within minutes had gone out again.

When mum arrived from work, she told me he went to Kempton, no doubt on the Fallowfield & Britten coach from Clapton Pond <Prince Monolulu, the famed so-called tipster who peed on my shoe at the halfway stop on the way to Newmarket one time, would always be on board>. When he came home, the girlfriend long gone, again I was greeted with a frosty silence as my mum looked on sympathetically.

The following night he went to Hackney dogs, his regular venue while I continued my apprenticeship in punting by going off with my mates to my favoured Thursday night track, Clapton. Slightly closer to home I always got back before him, and the difference in mood was soon evident.

He said, “I went to Kempton last night and had the Tote Treble <a regular bet in the second, fourth and sixth races of ten shillings, 50p in those days>. It Paid £98.18 shillings. Then tonight I had the Trifecta <first three home> at the dogs. It paid £123,15s,3d. <12 pence to the shilling>” He was always a lucky punter and couldn’t wait to tell me, whatever his feelings otherwise.

I never found out what happened to his last bet – he dropped dead in the William Hill betting shop (now closed) at Hackney Wick, 100 yards from his house and the ticket was never found. He was 82 and left me the heritage of Arsenal, cricket at the Oval and racing. What more did an eight-year-old need to set him up for life?

- TS

Monday Musings: Things Just Grand in Yorkshire

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When you are a grandson of the great show jumper Harvey Smith, what do you do other than become an international show jumper, like your father Steven Smith before you?, writes Tony Stafford. As Yorkshire as they come, Harvey was showjumping’s equivalent to another blunt speaking but highly talented man of his county, in his case from cricket in the middle of last century, Fred Trueman, in the days when both sports got plentiful live coverage on the BBC.

Add the surname Parkinson – remember the chat-show legend? – and the county theme continues. But if you want some historic nomenclature from horseracing, how about your parents call you Joel, recalling the Classic winning owner-breeders Jim and Stanhope, whose family made its money from gold mines in South Africa.

For those of more tender years, Harvey was as famous for a single V-sign to the judges after he won the 1971 British Show Jumping Derby as anything else. They withheld the £2,000 prizemoney for the “obscene gesture” which Harvey explained was merely a homage to Winston Churchill’s wartime victory salute. When Fred was asked by 13-year-old me as the players milled about in front of the pavilion on a rain-ruined day at I think Valentines Park, Ilford, “Please Mr Trueman, can I have your autograph?” “Fook off sooon!”

Twenty years later, standing in for Jonathan Powell doing the People weekly racing article, I was invited to sit in Fred’s seat. I declined.

It was to surprise in many quarters when Harvey joined with wife Sue to set up a training stable at High Eldwick, near Bingley in West Yorkshire. They opened for business in time for the 1989/90 season and, for the next 36 winters, Sue Smith was a regular winner of major races – mostly chases. The highlight of course was the victory of Auroras Encore in the 2013 Grand National.

For the past few years, her young relative Joel acted as her assistant before she had notched a single winner at the point in her final solo season when the joint training agreement came into play. Sue had gone from a peak of 70 wins at one stage to more modest high teens returns in her two final campaigns in sole charge.

The benefit of the new arrangement where, as in several other well-publicised partnerships, the younger element takes increasingly more prominence, was soon evident. Last season, the pair added 27 to Sue’s solo single and, after the weekend, with four wins in the last 14 days, they have already collected 22 and are within a jot of matching that season’s improved prizemoney tally.

Why the preamble? I’m getting to it. A horse trained by Joel Parkinson and Sue Smith was backed as if defeat was out of the question on Saturday and won accordingly. The race, the Tommy Whittle Handicap Chase at Haydock Park, is a three-mile contest named in honour of one of Haydock’s chairmen.

It was inaugurated in 1982 and among its first dozen winners were northern-trained Cheltenham Gold Cup heroes Little Owl, Forgive ‘N Forget and The Thinker, along with the phenomenal grey One Man. Sue Smith won the 2004 race with Chives, ridden by Dominic Elsworth.

It’s now a 0-145, so the likelihood of its ever offering a hand-up to another Gold Cup winner – they tend to be rated in the high 170s – is remote, except possibly in the case of Saturday’s extraordinary winner.

If ever a chase of this fame – however slightly tarnished the Tommy Whittle might be by that upper limit of 145 – has been won by a horse that had never previously won any race, I’d need someone with better historical records to remind me.

Six-year-old Grand Geste had been bought by Harvey Smith for £13,000 at the Goffs UK Spring sale in 2022. Before Saturday, he had run 11 times without winning, in two bumpers, seven hurdle races and a couple of chases.

On Saturday he was 2lb out of the handicap, so running off 119 in a 12-runner race which featured Nicky Richards’ previous Tommy Whittle winner Famous Bridge. That rival was never in contention as Danny McMenamin sent Grand Geste to the front from the off, jumping with amazing alacrity and agility.

There’s something about a front-running, bold-jumping grey horse – Desert Orchid? – and while it might be premature to talk about these two horses in the same breath, come a couple of years down the line, the relevance of Saturday will have been reinforced many times over, I’m sure.

A six-year-old as I mentioned, he is one of five of that age to win the race, more common nowadays with its being an event for emerging talents rather than established stars that have gone beyond the upper limit bracket.

Yet, in a way, Grand Geste should have probably been operating off far more advantageous marks – to begin with at least. Many shrewd handicap trainers who know how to play the system would describe as “unfortunate” on the one hand or “idiotic” more likely the day at Carlisle when Grand Geste narrowly failed to record a 200/1 win in his final novice hurdle race before collecting a handicap mark.

That day, the grey entered the uphill run-in with two lengths to spare over the field, but Sean Bowen on Olly Murphy’s Barlavento conjured one of his flying and all-action finishes to foil the grey, who in the process probably added 30lb to what would otherwise have been his opening mark.

He operated decently enough last season, with a couple of third places in a light campaign, but when he returned to Carlisle for a first run over fences, he got within four lengths of Ben Pauling’s useful performer The Jukebox Kid. Next was a narrow defeat at Newcastle, caught late on by Alcedo, trained by Venetia Williams.

Here though, in his first race beyond three miles, from start to finish all that remained in the mind was the vision of that exuberant jumping and the six-and-a-half-length winning margin that Danny could have stretched if needed. Expect maybe 14lb or even a little more to be lumped on the 119 he ran off when the new ratings come out tomorrow. If anything, on present evidence, Parkinson/Smith will be saying, “the more the merrier” and “handicapper, bring it on!”

The way he galloped all the way to the line, something like the Peter Marsh Chase back at Haydock next month would be ideal. Sue Smith has won it five times, but Grand Geste needs to go up even more than the harshest assessor could contrive to get in the weights. Mr Vango, one of the favourites for next year’s Grand National won it last year off 140 – and he was bottom weight!  Who says he couldn’t win it from 10lb wrong? The trainers and the market are unlikely to be bothered at all.

Talking of Mr Vango, he came back to action this month and just failed in a thrilling tussle to win the Becher Chase over the Aintree Grand National fences. I can picture Grand Geste going over those before long, too.

Mr Vango was done on the line by Ben Pauling’s Twig and I remember when Twig got his first handicap mark a few years back, Ben was bemoaning the fact that he had started off with a far higher figure than was necessary.

After two unplaced runs from Ben’s yard, he switched to point-to-pointing, winning six times, all for stable owner Mrs Georgia Morgan and ridden each time by Georgia’s son Beau. Before rejoining Pauling from the Matthew Hampton yard, he added a comfortable hunter-chase win at Warwick. Had he run three times rather than two in that initial spell, he would already have had a mark and running in that hunter chase might have been avoided. As it was, he started off with 132.

That Ben could win to date nine times, three over hurdles and six chases, with him from that difficult starting point, shows that if the talent is there, the wins will follow given the abilities of trainer and rider.

On a lower level, on Saturday I was talking to Hughie Morrison about a filly of his that was lining up for a third run later at Wolverhampton. He said she had been working much better of late and that he expected her to run a decent race, despite the massive morning odds.

She still started at 40/1 but ran nicely all the way, only beaten by a once-raced Godolphin filly ridden by Billy Loughnane.

Hughie expected that this home-bred daughter of St Mark’s Basilica, for the Arbib partnership, would “blow” a potential favourable mark, but for such owners showing something on the racecourse, especially a two-year-old filly, transcends such trivialities.

Judging by the smooth way she travelled around the inside at Dunstall Park, and remained well ahead of the rest of the field, suggests she won’t be too far off in another fillies’ maiden, especially if Charlie Appleby suffers a touch of heat stroke during his winter sojourn in Dubai and forgets to enter against her.

Hughie got a result just over half an hour later when nursery winner Tinsel provided an apt moment for the Christmas season. With no racing after today until Boxing Day, he can sit back and enjoy the festivities.

I would like to wish all my readers a lovely holiday season. I’m happy that, as you may have noticed, the days are getting longer at last! Roll on Royal Ascot.

Mentioning Ascot, I must drop in a line about Sir Johnny Weatherby, the late Queen’s representative at the Royal course for many years. It was as much a shock to learn that that he was 66 when he died as that he had passed away at all. Many who knew him much better than I did have spoken so highly of him. His loss will be sorely felt throughout the racing world, but especially at the family firm, Racing’s secretaries, that carries his name. Nice man.

  • TS

Monday Musings: Hong Kong Rising

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At a time when interest rates for savers seem woefully low, especially if those savers enjoy having a bet, there must have been people enviously looking across to Sha Tin racecourse early yesterday, writes Tony Stafford. They were calculating what they might win on the Dream Double.

Yes, here was the chance to couple Hong Kong’s two international-class stars. Ka Ying Rising, the world’s best sprinter fresh from winning the £3.46 million Everest in Australia (and a cheeky domestic Group 2 in between), with Romantic Warrior, winner of 19 of his 25 turf starts. They both won, of course, and I can reveal that the safe-as-houses double would have realised £15.50 profit for every £100 staked.

There were few alarms during either race as Ya King Rising (1/20) pulled almost four lengths clear of his field under Aussie Zac Purton to mop up the £1.613m to the winner Longines Hong Kong Sprint over six furlongs. Three races later 1/10 shot Romantic Warrior and regular New Zealand-born partner James McDonald was as efficient as usual running almost two lengths clear of the field for the £2.304m Hong Kong Cup over ten furlongs.

So a 15.5% yield with a little less than two hours between the races for the racing-mad Hong Kong public to work out their expected profits. A handsome windfall indeed for the mathematicians who could translate it to 180% in a day while the present interest rates worldwide equate to nearer 0.01% per day.

Of course, all that is nonsense. They have to win! Romantic Warrior paid 11 HK dollars for a 10 dollar win bet and understandably, only 10.10 dollars, that’s 100/1 on, for a place.

Ka Ying Rising also paid 100/1 on for a place as he sped home for win number 17 of 19 starts, the last 16 in a row. Indeed, his two reverses came in races two and three in January last year, by a nose then a short head!

He is now on £11.7 million for those wins, a figure dwarfed by Romantic Warrior’s £24.3 million after the latest windfall yesterday. That son of Acclamation is a testimony to the veteran UK-based sire and an encouragement to a friend about to go into a partnership with trainer Roger Varian in a yearling by the stallion.

Ka Ying Rising’s win bet, in arithmetical terms, depending on how close to the off it was placed – let’s say within a couple of minutes – took 67.70 seconds to come to fruition. So 5HK dollars’ profit (from the 100 HK dollars stake) in three minutes equates to a rate of 100% in an hour. The snag? You need to find another 19 certainties to maintain that rate.

https://youtu.be/30tScLujPP8?si=VN7Vsd-Sq5aKIecz

It is extraordinary how consistent these two champions have become. Romantic Warrior lost little of his sheen with two defeats early this year, both at the hooves of Japanese-trained horses. First, he was collared late on by subsequent Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Forever Young in the £8 million to the winner Saudi Cup in Riyadh; then Soul Rush denied him, again on the line, in the Dubai Turf on World Cup night at Meydan in March.

Trainer C S (Danny) Shum gave him an eight-month break after Meydan, and he returned with an easy win on his home course last month. Had he won the other two races where he was so narrowly denied, his earnings would have been boosted by another £7,720k, thus a mind-bending £31.5 million!

Both horses are geldings, Romantic Warrior a seven-year-old and Ka Ying Rising two years younger. They are the best examples of the Hong Kong Jockey Club recruitment system in Europe, Australia and the United Stakes, principally confined to geldings, that has proved the blueprint to success.

Further east, Japan’s racing culture produces horses, like these two Hong Kong examples, capable of mixing it with the best that Europe and the US can muster. There, though, it is with a vast preponderance of entire horses that stay effectively in training for many years yet continue to run at a high level.

In all, seven Japanese geldings travelled across to contest the four international races, and their connections will have been delighted with a couple of second places. Soul Rush, avoiding Romantic Warrior this time, didn’t have the chance to confirm that win last spring, switching instead to the Mile race. He was denied by half a length by another local winner, Voyage Bubble, a second victory after Ka Ying Rising for Purton.

Harry Eustace’s Docklands was a creditable fourth here, but the Lion In Winter and Ryan Moore were never in contention and finished only eleventh.

Bellagio Opera also did extremely well for Japan, following home Romantic Warrior in second place and collecting more than £800k as a result. Only a five-year-old, he can be expected to be back again for the big races – probably in Riyadh in February and on World Cup day in Dubai the following month.

Harry Eustace has been enjoying a wonderful time over the past 13 months or so with Docklands, who apart from unexpectedly winning the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, has also performed well in Japan, Australia and Hong Kong, to where this was a second visit.

This trip will have given him time to catch up with brother David, who after a spell as joint trainer with Ciaron Maher in Australia, now operates under his sole proprietorship in Hong Kong.

David Eustace had a nice handicap win early on the card, whereas at the other end of the day, Hollie Doyle came very close to adding to her HK tally, finishing second in the finale on Drombeg Banner. She, Richard Kingscote, David Probert and longer-standing Hong Kong resident Harry Bentley, have a tough time getting on the right horses in this tight community.

The one major race that did evade the home team was the 1m4f Vase won by the Andre Fabre-trained Sosie, for the Wertheimer brothers. Sosie had been a strong fancy for the Arc where he was a fast-finishing third and that form ensured he would start favourite here.

In the event, the first five places went to the Europeans: Marco Botti’s Giavellotto, ridden by another recent UK export Andrei Atzeni, maintained his high level of form in second ahead of Goliath, Joseph O’Brien’s Al Riffa and Aidan’s Los Angeles.

Back in the UK, Saturday’s most valuable prize was the one-time Massey-Ferguson Gold Cup, the companion race in those days to the month-earlier Mackeson Gold Cup. It was very nice that a race of this stature was chosen as the vehicle for the Support the Hunt Family Fund, with Gold Cup Handicap Chase added for good measure.

Everyone has heard of the awful tragedy that John and his family endured, with his wife and two daughters killed in a pointless, brutal attack in their home just as John was driving back from his commentating duties at Lingfield that afternoon.

I bumped into John and his surviving daughter Amy the other day and for the umpteenth time wondered how they can keep control of their emotions as they appear to.

The race was something of a fairy tale, with Sean Bowen making all the running on a 33/1 shot for trainer Faye Bramley. Glengouly was 5lb out of the handicap, hence the big price despite the riding arrangements, and his history tells another tale.

After three wins during a busy career with Willie Mullins and an unseat when tiring a long way into the 2024 Grand National, he came up for sale in this May’s Tatts online sale, changing hands for 16,000gns.

He started off in his new yard with some modest efforts and then a wind op, but gradually things got better, yet hardly well enough to collect such a big prize. No wonder Sean Bowen reckons he can win 300 races this season, if he can have such a transforming effect on what might have appeared a tired old veteran. We never thought Tony McCoy’s best would ever be under threat, but Sean reckons otherwise. So far, it’s 155 and counting!

Dan Skelton didn’t win that one but collected another 13 during the past fortnight including a late double on the Cheltenham card. Harry looked especially good and he obviously gets a special kick coming up the hill first at Prestbury Park. Maybe he’ll think of a new celebration if that happens at the Festival. Perhaps standing up on the saddle as he crosses the line first after one of those minutely targeted handicaps?

- TS

Monday Musings: A Grey Area

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A week ago, when talking to Nicky Richards in the morning when he had sent three horses to Ayr – he won in the afternoon with 4/1 on shot Upon Tweed - we had a quick chat about one of his other runners, writes Tony Stafford. Red Cadillac had narrowly won his previous race at Carlisle and as a result he was carrying 11st13lb in this £4k to the winner handicap hurdle.

“I expect our horse will run well, that is unless Gordon Elliott’s boys are coming with their betting boots on”. Like three other runners on the day, King Gris was to be ridden by Sean Bowen. Running off 73, therefore in receipt of 25lb from Nicky’s horse, King Gris, owned by the Sette A Milano Syndicate, was 5lb wrong, as his official mark was a bargain-basement 68!

By the time of the race at 2.45 p.m., as the Editor and I were just about on the dessert course at the Horserace Writers and Photographers Association lunch in London, Elliott and the champion jockey already had two wins on the board. At the off, King Gris, 5/2 against at one point in the morning, was 11/4 on and won comfortably doing only what was needed by Bowen to land the odds.

The official margin, which could clearly have been extended if Bowen (and no doubt Elliott) had wished, was two lengths. After that in the seven-horse affair over the minimum trip it was 7 lengths, 6½, 9½, 3¾ and half a length. Strung out like washing on the line as the pre-race market suggested they would be.

Probably struggling to keep a straight face afterwards speaking to Racing TV, Gordon Elliott said, “It was nip and tuck going to the last, but King Gris won which is the most important thing, and he has a good attitude. That was a low-grade race but hopefully he'll be able to win a couple more.” No doubt! Richards’ guess is that he could be a 120 horse.

Red Cadillac, of course, was second and having done his best against what clearly were virtually impossible odds, his connections are going to have to pay a price. As Richards said yesterday, “No doubt after this he’ll go up in Tuesday’s new ratings and from there it will be harder for us to find another race with him.”

Reflecting yesterday morning in response to my reminding him of the event, he said, “There’s been hell on about it. I’ve had calls about it, but I think the BHA are to blame for allowing such a situation to arise.

“This was a Class 5, 0-100 race. During Covid, the rules were changed to prevent Irish stables having runners in races over here at Class 5. That has since been rescinded, but why I’ve no idea. We struggle enough to beat their horses in the top races – look at what Il Etait Temps did to Jonbon and co at Sandown. If we must contend with apparent set-ups like King Gris, what chance do we have?”

So, how did King Gris, a former Irish pointer with a very close third as the best of three runs on his card for owner-trainer Denis Paul Murphy, manage to arrive at a jumps rating of 68, equating to a flat mark in the early/mid 20s?

A short time after that promising pointing third I referred to, King Gris was gelded and it was only a few weeks later that he turned out in a hurdle race at Bangor under the auspices of Merseyside trainer Patrick Morris. He was a 25/1 shot, reflecting that point-to-point effort just a couple of months earlier but finished ninth of ten and was beaten a mammoth 90 lengths.

Next came Morris’s local track Aintree, where King Gris was fifth of six, beaten 63 lengths at 150/1. The final qualifying effort was at Cartmel. There, starting 250/1, and ridden as at Aintree by Charlie Todd, he was last of nine finishers. Job done – three runs from April 24 to May 28.

That was the last we saw of him until Monday a week ago.

The most intriguing element of the story must surely be why he was sent to Morris after the gelding operation if he was eventually destined for one of the top Irish jumping yards. Indeed, the stable that is second only to the magical Willie Mullins.

Morris has been training since 2002 with runners on the flat since 2004 and, apart from two blanks during that time, he has been a regular winner. In 2025 he boasts a decent strike-rate with 14 winners, a tally beaten only three times with the peak of 19 coming in 2011.

Coincidentally, the day of King Gris’ Ayr coup, Morris had a winner later on at Wolverhampton, then one the following day at Newcastle, and another on Saturday back at Dunstall Park. No reason then not to send a horse to Morris? Maybe, but here’s another coincidence. The trainer has run only two individual horses over jumps last season and this. They are King Gris and the useful chaser Royal Deeside who has won twice this term.

The coincidence? Morris’s last jump runners before King Gris and Royal Deeside had been as long ago as in 2011, the time of his best flat season. In all, before 2024/25 he sent out a total of 29 sporadic runners over the quarter-century for a single jumping success.

*

If you want a strike-rate at the other end of the scale, how about Sara Bradstock, widow of Mark Bradstock and daughter of my long-term Daily Telegraph colleague John Oaksey. After the Bradstocks’ Mr Vango won a 3m6f chase in testing ground at Exeter two seasons back by 50 lengths, I thought he would knock the Irish off their collective perches at Cheltenham in the National Hunt Chase.

That proved beyond him at that stage, but last winter he went unbeaten through a forensically chosen three-race campaign, culminating with success in the Midlands Grand National over four and a quarter miles at Uttoxeter, a couple of weeks before the Grand National.

Mr Vango will now have the big race on his agenda next March, having come through a trial go over the big-race fences in Saturday’s Becher Chase (3m2f). Having looked beaten and running off top weight of 12st, from a peg 32lb higher than when winning that race at Exeter and 9lb higher than Uttoxeter, he was as unlucky a loser as you can find.

That said, in Twig he met an equally determined and deserving runner from the Ben Pauling stable, ridden as usual by Beau Morgan, son of Twig’s owner.

Twig had been my long-priced nap for the 2025 Grand National and, in running tenth of the 34, was the second home-trained finisher intruding on the Irish juggernaut’s private carving up of the £1 million prizemoney. With Ben saying he “wouldn’t swop him”, for some reason I preferred to look elsewhere for my best bet on Saturday and grimaced as the close-up showed his head down with his rival’s up to get the better of a wonderful finish.

Every time Sara sends out a runner under Rules, I think back to all those years when her father and I comprised the Sunday Telegraph writing team at the Grand National.

While John was crafting his wonderful words for the larger, later editions in terms of readership, I was the “sprinter” charged with doing the fast version of events for the Irish, Scottish and Northern readership.

We operated from a house across the road from the track, with a phone in every room and shared with Brough Scott and others those facilities in Chasandi, the home of a very nice Scouser family. No phones in the track, no computers to put the words together, just a disembodied telephonist taking your words back in Fleet Street to send on to the printers.

One of the top writers at the time was Christopher Poole, a giant, genial, rotund chap who worked for the London Evening Standard. If you thought our system in today’s world would be considered tortuous, Chris had to relate his to his own travelling telephonist, Max, who would then repeat the words back to Fleet Street! If Mr Vango does beat all those Irish stars next spring, even I won’t be able to resist a tear or two remembering John and quite a few others too.

 - TS

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