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Monday Musings: Declines And Falls

10 August 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

When you get to my advanced years, the one thing you cannot afford to do is take a fall, writes Tony Stafford. So many friends of my generation have suffered broken hips or worse, two in separate incidents in one case. Another, Maurice Manasseh, still feels the discomfort and has the bruising to show from his tumble down a difficult flight of steps during Royal Ascot, only minimised by girlfriend Clare’s alertness in interrupting the fall.

Late last week I learnt of another long-time friend’s awful situation. Prince Rajsinh of Rajpipla, son of the much-revered Maharajah of Rajpipla, owner of 1934 Derby winner Windsor Lad, slipped and fell in the foyer of his block of flats “two years ago”, he remembers. He suffered such serious injuries that he is now confined to bed and needing support from a team of four carers.

While feeling so frustratingly helpless, he says “I watch the racing 12 hours a day and still have my tiny bets”. Without the Sport of Kings and for that matter of Sons of Maharajahs, he would be totally lost.

A tall, lean, always-smartly attired man right up to the time of his accident, Pippy used to stroll every day from his apartment in Park Lane, next to the Dorchester Hotel, and up to St John’s Wood. It was almost a five-mile round trip. “Now, I cannot walk at all. It’s horrible,” he says.

In his early days in the late 1950s and early 1960s he was a youthful owner with Major Peter Cazalet, one of the premier jumps trainers of that era. He had plenty of success with Cazalet, even selling a couple of his up-and-coming horses, Three No Trumps and Oedipe II, the latter acquired from France, to Her Majesty the Queen Mother. They became good friends.

Apart from being one of the leviathans of the betting rings of the South-East in those days, he was also something of a man about town, often seen in the company of such as Joan Collins and her then husband, the singer/actor Anthony Newley.

I knew him from the track probably a decade later and then when I took over as part-time editor of The Racehorse weekly paper, inheriting Pippy as one of the correspondents. He was then living in France and used to send over his weekly offerings by post. It came in flowery handwriting and always showed how close he was to the action over there, close friends especially with the Head family, Alec and children Criquette and Freddy.

One Monday morning in May 1976, so 50 years ago, he called with a real exclusive. The day before he had been at Longchamp to see the Prix Lupin, a discontinued race for years, but in those days the best trial for the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby).

Owner Nelson Bunker Hunt, a major American owner-breeder, long before his demise after trying unsuccessfully to corner the world silver bullion market, had two runners in the Lupin. The favourite was Youth, ridden by France’s perennial champion Yves Saint-Martin, and his other runner, Empery, would be the mount of Lester Piggott. Both were trained by Egyptian-born Maurice Zilber and they finished in the correct order, with Youth first and Empery third.

The bombshell was that Pippy overheard Lester whisper to Zilber, “I’ll ride him in the Derby”. Talk about an exclusive. Even Peter O’Sullevan, Zilber’s friend, hadn’t been privy to the conversation. Empery was 33/1 that day, but not for long; Lester duly took the ride and Empery, 10/1 by Derby Day, won as he liked with Wollow, the 2,000 Guineas winner and favourite for Henry Cecil, failing to stay. Youth won the French Derby, naturellement.

It was also at that far-off time when Michael Dickinson was still a jockey riding for his father Tony from their yard in Gisburn, Lancashire, before the later move across the Pennines to Harewood in Yorkshire. The very tall Michael used to go to a sauna every night to help keep his weight under control and would then call me most evenings at the Daily Telegraph, starting every conversation with, “Now then!”

One night he said his dad was planning to travel to New Zealand to try to buy some horses. Derek Kent had had great success at that time with New Zealand imports in his yard near Goodwood and Tony wanted to try to follow his example.

Knowing, however, that I had a nice contact in France, I suggested to Michael that maybe they should first think about a shorter trip. Pippy soon organised a visit to the stable of Malcolm Parrish, a friend of Lester’s who had around 100 horses in his stable, officially under his head lad’s name, among them some “proper horses.”

They went over and came up with two: a four-year-old called French Hollow who had a very high handicap rating and a three-year-old who had already run twice over hurdles early in the year called Flying Hugue. They bought the pair and French Hollow turned out to be a top-class hurdler in the UK before transferring to the US where he became champion steeplechaser; Flying Hugue landed a massive gamble first time at Wetherby on Boxing Day.

There were three Dickinson runners in that race. Two older newcomers – Brother Broncho, ridden by Michael, and Carnival Day as well as Flying Hugue. Colin Tinkler had the mount on the three-year-old as he could do a light weight. So, while everyone expected Michael to be on “the one”, as he remembers, “I only told Col he would win in the paddock. He did!”

That purchase was the forerunner to my accidentally meeting Malcolm Parrish with David O’Brien (Vincent’s son, a Derby-winning trainer himself and now a happy wine grower in France) at the Cashel Palace Hotel, close to Ballydoyle. I came away from the meeting owning ten horses! I told Malcolm I had been the instigator to the French Hollow/Flying Hugue deal. “Want any more?” he asked. “Okay,” I replied. “Fancy ten for 100k?” “Why not?”, although I doubt I had 10 grand at the time.

Still, Brunico, Santopadre and others soon sorted out that impossible situation, while Malcolm, who owned carpet mills in Europe, later bought neighbouring Lordship and Egerton studs although he would later return to France with wife “Snif” having sold the farms near the National Stud and July Course in Newmarket.

Pippy came back to London soon after and as he says, “I’ve lived in this flat for 45 years now.” Apart from being a regular racegoer at the London tracks for most of those many years, he also took time to produce a well-received booklet called The War Zone and wrote for several years for the Sun newspaper, which used his title and racing knowledge in its own inimitable style.

If all that seems a long time ago, he does have a cherished memory of his last trip to a racecourse. He recalled, “The last time I went racing, I spent the day with Jilly Cooper. How awful that that wonderful person and writer should have died after a fall at her home last year.”

For many years, no Ascot meeting would have gone without the presence of Prince Pippy and he was always an astute paddock watcher before finalising his bets. He would have loved being there on Saturday for the latest instalment of the Shergar Cup, an event graced for only the second time, and first for 20 years, by Ryan Moore.

Granted a free day by the switch of last weekend’s Curragh fixture to Sunday, he gave great professional legitimacy to a day which is never short of enjoyment among the always healthy crowds. Ryan, winning two and placed second and third once each from his five mounts, won the individual award. His UK and Ireland team, completed by Dylan Browne McMonagle and Saffie Osborne, took the team prize. “It’s been lovely,” said a beaming Ryan.

Meanwhile, son Toby was over at Newmarket getting home by a short-head on Man Of Vision in a handicap for his boss Charlie Appleby. With so many nice horses at home to ride, and with Ryan to keep an eye out for him, and rein in any over-confidence, it’s clear that the 7lb claimer is on the right path.

I spoke to his grandfather Gary at Goodwood the other day, saying he must be pleased with his grandson’s progression. He said, “He’s doing all right – considering he’s in a care home!” Wonder what he meant? No doubt Gary might have preferred the sort of rough and tumble with which his own four kids Ryan, Jamie and Josh, along with sister Hayley, started out. To think that Ryan’s first ever winner came in a hurdle race!

The most amazing result of the past week was by a Godolphin horse trained by Charlie Appleby.

When an Appleby three-year-old makes its debut at a place like Kempton, you would assume that all the work riders – lots of ex-jockeys among them – would have an idea of what to expect and the horse would be priced accordingly. But when Fortunadine, a gelded full brother to recently retired multiple Group 1 winner Rebel’s Romance took his first steps on a racecourse, he was only moderately fancied.

Fortunadine was allowed to start at 7-2, with James Doyle getting him fast out of the stalls in this 1m3f novice race, the pair simply stretching relentlessly further clear of their 11 rivals to the tune of 21 lengths.

It seems nobody had a clue, Charlie saying, “He shows us nothing!” He has now! Pippy was watching. “I’ve never seen anything like it!” he said.

- TS

Monday Musings: A Little Bit of Rekindling

3 August 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

At my age it doesn’t take much to trigger long-hidden memories, writes Tony Stafford. I wondered as I sat down to open these words why the song “A little bit of soap”, an ordinary ditty from 1961 by the Jarmels (who they, I ask?) should be inhabiting my brain. The next visit to the bathroom revealed all, a tiny amount remained in the soap dish – barely enough to work up a passable lather.

I’d already had another memory from the 1950s/60s when I spoke to Jack Morland about his first-time two-year-old Spes Durat Avorum, which ran yesterday at Yarmouth. That Latin name is the school motto of Kimbolton School and my school, Central Foundation in London, has the school motto and song, Spe Labore Fide.

It still is, and the school remains where it was, at the roundabout between Old Street and City Road just north of the City of London’s boundary.

It meant “hope, labour, faith” and, even more than six decades since my three (or was it four?) years’ learning Latin, a fair remnant remains, still helpful in guessing the meaning of some more obscure words.

I’m sure my first wife retains that ability, too. She got 100 per cent in her first Latin examination, and the following time it was 99%. The teacher, a kindly soul, remarked, “You’re on the slippery slope, Gillian!”

I normally remark here on June 23 or thereabouts that we are on the slippery slope to ever-shorter days for the next six months until just before Christmas. It was during the period of maximum darkness that I embarked on something I hadn’t previously – gorging on a Netflix series.

I’d found the odd ten- or twelve-episode stuff to ease me into subconsciousness before going off to sleep, but his time I’d discovered the ultimate. It encapsulated hope, labour, faith in full measure.

On Netflix you get various menus and one day I noticed a series that I’d maybe seen the odd episode of from way back when first screened more than 30 years ago. It was the hospital drama ER, Emergency Room, situated in Chicago and the idea of novelist Michael Crichton, which began in 1993 and continued until 2008.

You click on ER and it comes up as Season 1 Episode 1. The first season ran for 25 episodes. Each of the next 14 – yes there were 15 seasons! – contained 22 shows, so a total of 333! On Friday night I finished them all, by way of two or three every night, so obviously from midwinter onwards.

When it rather cleverly ended on that ultimate double-length finale, it showed that, like life, everything in an ER goes on as before, however much the personnel changes. Nobody is indispensable. Bereft of my bedtime nourishment, I looked on the menu on Saturday for available shows and there it was. Season 1 Episode 1. I couldn’t resist a quick look, but after viewing for a minute, I switched it off, trusting that I never again will succumb to its addictive charms.

Racing’s a bit like that. You get to a point when you might think you are losing your enthusiasm and then something happens to rekindle the excitement. Goodwood is always a track that did that for me and my two visits on Tuesday and Thursday were no different. I enjoyed being close to the action as Scandinavia in the Goodwood Cup and Diamond Necklace in the Nassau Stakes reaffirmed the Aidan O’Brien team’s status as the top stable of 2026.

In between, hoping for a restful day in front of the box rather than another 280-mile round trip, I admired the power of Bow Echo’s finish under Billy Loughnane to catch old rival Gstaad in the Sussex Stakes.

George Boughey is such a cool customer. I remember one day when he was assistant trainer to Hugo Palmer in his Newmarket days, going up to watch one of Ray’s young horses make its debut at Thirsk. George was in his early 20s then, but he already had a calm assurance about him. The horse ran well but didn’t go on. George did, in spades.

If anyone on the TV teams on either ITV or Racing TV read this, none of them has bothered to change the pronunciation of Bow to Bough, meaning the echo coming from the bow of a ship. Who cares, apart from George Hill, or Mr Pedantic as we must call him from now on. He’s visiting some of his grandchildren in the US now, so he won’t be offended at the disrespect.

I remember sitting with Sheikh Mohammed in a car near a yard at Dullingham near Newmarket, it must have been more than 40 years ago, when he said, “To develop a serious breeding programme it can take 30 years.” His Darley Stud and Godolphin operation have pretty much achieved that now and are serious producers along the lines of Coolmore, if without that stud’s breadth of stallion and mare talent, Juddmonte and Shadwell and the Aga Khan Studs.

Another Middle Eastern power, this time from Qatar, has sought to make a short-cut to prominence in the game. Wathnan Racing, using the recruitment skills predominantly of Richard Brown, has gone for buying young horses from the sales to horses in training that have already shown ability.

Initially Wathnan’s ownership was secretive but now we know in its third full year of operation that the Emir of Qatar is the owner. If you own a country, that always helps; Qatar also is the main sponsor of Goodwood, pushing its prizemoney ever upward. Understandably, Wathnan targeted the meeting to showcase its development, and last week had a spectacular time.

They won seven races in all, culminating with a head victory for James Doyle’s mount Evening Saigon on the less-favoured far side in a typically tight finish for the week in the Stewards’ Cup. Their 37 runners were spread through most of the top domestic yards, but their home champion trainer Hamad Al Jehani showed his own talent when as well as the Stewards’ Cup, he also won another big handicap with Archivist earlier in the week.

Just as Ryan Moore sometimes gets on the wrong horse when Coolmore has multiple runners, so Doyle occasionally must watch on as another rider takes the prize. It happened three times last week, but I know how proud his mum Jacqui is at her son’s success in such a high-profile job. He rode four of his team’s winners, one fewer than Ryan Moore and equal second on the week with Dylan Browne McMonagle.

McMonagle is rising to the top with his boss Joseph O’Brien, leading trainer at the meeting with four wins. Dylan is a little older than the meteor that is Loughnane, who over the past fortnight has stretched his lead in the 2026 Championship table over four-time winner Oisin Murphy from four to 11, now 84 to 73 thanks to 18 wins in those two weeks.

As ever, agent Tony Hind has been the catalyst. Former champions Ryan Moore and William Buick’s agent also handles Loughnane. An example of his astuteness came on Thursday. Roger Teal was running his twice-raced filly Avalon Queen in the two-year-old fillies’ maiden. The word here before racing was that the Aidan O’Brien filly So Lovely, a daughter of Wootton Bassett out of 1,000 Guineas and Oaks winner Love, was a bigger certainty that day even than Diamond Necklace.

Roger told me, “They rang up for the ride for Billy on Avalon Queen. Tony Hind must have fancied her.” In the race Loughnane was always a couple of lengths ahead of the hot favourite and, although it was quite tight at the line, So Lovely didn’t quite get up.

I’ve called Billy a future champion many times and one reminiscent of a young Lester Piggott. It seems that the future is now and while Oisin has the Andrew Balding masses at his disposal, Loughnane is getting his rides from an ever-widening circle. I reckon it’s done and dusted. Maybe even for the next ten years! I hope I’m around to see it.

- TS

Monday Musings: Another Landmark for the Balding Dynasty

27 July 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Fifty-five years on from when the wonderful Mill Reef won the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes for the late Ian Balding, on Saturday at Ascot, his son Andrew sent out Kalpana to win a stellar renewal of the race, writes Tony Stafford.

Mill Reef was a Derby winner, and now the five-year-old mare needed to beat this year’s Irish Derby hero Benvenuto Cellini and last year’s Epsom winner Lambourn to land the prize.

Not just the Aidan O’Brien colts, but also fellow five-year-old Calandagan, officially the world’s top-rated racehorse, and a gelding to boot, so one that the Aga Khan studs can continue to race with impunity as long as the legs and wind, never mind form, warrant it.

The early skirmishes featured Coolmore’s pacemaker, Action, leading Lambourn at the head of the nine-runner field. We were wondering whether Kalpana, the sole UK runner, would cope with the O’Brien quartet, principally Benvenuto Cellini and the four-year-old filly Minnie Hauk, as well as the Francis-Henri Graffard pair of Calandagan and Goliath, the two latest winners of the race, as well as a well-respected pair from Japan.

One of that Asian duo, Masquerade Ball, was strongly fancied having run Calandagan to a very close second in the Japan Cup last November before another eye-catching runner-up spot, only one length behind the world’s leading prizemoney earner Romantic Warrior at Sha Tin, Hong Kong, on his latest start in April.

So it was disconcerting to say the least when he, sporting the colours of the Shadai Race Horse Club, and outsider Wurttemberg, ridden by Oisin Murphy, were both toiling a long way behind the rest as the Ascot bell tolled to accompany the field into the straight. Wurttemberg is a homebred running in the colours of Shadai Farm’s boss Teruya Yoshida.

Masquerade Bell did move up one place past a badly weakening Minnie Hauk in the last furlong, but Wurrtemberg was allowed to coast home barely at a canter by Murphy.

The wait goes on then both for the King George and, even more agonisingly, for a Japanese winner of the Arc. Not even their late super stallion, Shadai-based Deep Impact, could achieve that objective; but you know they will keep trying.

Kalpana’s win turned around last year’s one-length defeat in the race by Calandagan. In third that day was the then seven-year-old gelding Rebel’s Romance, at three-and-a-half lengths. He followed that with an almost faultless year, the latest of 22 wins from 32 races coming in the Princess of Wales’s Stakes at the July Meeting at Newmarket a little over a fortnight ago. Godolphin announced his retirement last week.

Kalpana started her racing career relatively late, making her debut – a winning one – at Kempton in January 2024. She was ridden in that maiden race by Hayley Turner, and other jockeys to have won on her during a so-far 17-race record have been Ryan Moore, PJ McDonald, William Buick and now Juddmonte’s retained rider Colin Keane.

He took over after that second place in last year’s King George. The one anomaly of her career is that Oisin Murphy didn’t win on any of the four rides he had on her. She has eight wins, six second places and two thirds with only seventh place in last year’s Arc standing out as a substandard effort. I doubt Oisin will be getting back on Kalpana any time soon!

During an ordinary month (by their impossible standards) since Benvenuto Cellini overcame Derby winner Christmas Day at the Curragh, the Aidan O’Brien team characteristically kept going and were gratified by Benvenuto’s display on Saturday. Having been passed by Calandagan, he battled back dourly almost to catch the French star in the last furlong. Lambourn was a creditable fourth, but the rest were well beaten off.

Suggestions – Matt, are you putting words and ideas into people’s minds again? – that the Breeders’ Cup Turf would be an ideal place to show off Peter Brant’s green colours on this horse might well come to fruition, but it’s hard to see his going to Keeneland without running a time or two over here or in Ireland beforehand. The other partners will have their say on that.

So now the dust has settled, it might be time to question whether Andrew Balding’s steady but relentless rise up the trainers’ listing is set for a final push to a first UK championship. The £1.13 million purse on Saturday brought his tally for the year to £4,847,000 compared with O’Brien’s figure of £5,830,000, less than a million more.

Last year Balding had a best of £7.2 million, from 192 winners, compared to Aidan’s £8.1million. He’s already up to 120, the ninth year in a row where he has sent out more than 100 wins, and he’s at a best-ever strike rate of 21%.

It’s not just Kalpana that he can look to for big-race success either. At York on Saturday his Dante Stakes winner, Item, also running in the Juddmonte colours, strode clear of the 2025 Dante winner Pride Of Arras in the £93k Sky Bet York Stakes over the Dante 10.5-furlong trip under Rob Hornby.

Item seemed not to have stayed the Derby trip when finishing ninth to Christmas Day at Epsom, but he has surely opened up a nice avenue of races at ten furlongs for the rest of the season, leaving Kalpana to do her thing over the Classic distance that suits her so well.

It’s easy to dismiss racing as solely for the big battalions – as just a numbers game. But, from a smaller team, William Knight is re-rewriting his own statistics this year. From the four seasons covering 2022 to 2025, he sent out eight two-year-old winners on the turf from 92 runs, with six individual winners from 38 horses.

Already this year he has matched the six individual winners from the four previous campaigns – each having won once – from nine total starts. The latest success came on Saturday evening at Lingfield where Spirit Of Lyra, a 16,000 guineas yearling buy at Tattersalls Somerville sale last year, won by almost four lengths with her head in her chest.

One of the more equitable changes to racing over the past few years has been the growth in Restricted maiden and novice races divided into Bands B, C and D depending on sale prices. Even in Band D, which Saturday’s race was, you can get the odd potentially high-class performer and, while it’s early days, this Rathmoy Stables partnership horse could be pretty decent.

It’s never been a numbers game for Lew Day, initially with a few with the late Eric Wheeler and then more recently with the smart pair Spark Plug and Raheen House with Brian Meehan, the latter moving to William Haggas before his sale to Australia.

This year’s hopes on the track rest with the three-year-old filly Rossa Raheen, and she showed terrific guts for the Ollie Sangster stable when winning at the first try at 1m4f at Salisbury on Saturday evening. Lew has a great belief in stallions Sea The Stars and Kingman. This progressive filly is by Palace Pier, a son of Kingman, out of a Sea The Stars mare

Lew can be a stubborn kind of fellow, but he knows what he believes and, as with his own small band of broodmares, is prepared to back it up with cash. He is carrying out that single-minded policy with a great chance of success.

- TS

Monday Musings: Think Big-ger!

20 July 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

What, writes Tony Stafford, does a small money syndicate do when the horse that has won it nine races (seven flat and two hurdles) in 18 months is incapacitated after sustaining an injury during a race at Royal Ascot? Well, the Think Big Syndicate did just that – they thought big and simply got another!

I’ve mentioned the exploits of Carlton in these musings a time or two, having marvelled at the way he moved from a rating of 48 to 82, initially exploiting the frequent handicaps for lower-grade animals that the 1m6f trip at Chelmsford used to afford it.

As his mark rose, the opportunities were less plentiful, but still the magician that is James Owen – himself a shareholder in Carlton – contrived to winkle out three more on the level after an initial four-timer all over that track and trip.

Carlton, a son of Frankel (stud fee £350k), was sourced for the boys in a private deal for £6,000 brokered by bloodstock agent and former jockey Freddy Tylicki, out of the Tracy Waggott yard.

The genes, then, are from possibly the greatest racehorse of all time – I still have Sea Bird II challenging him from my early years writing about racing all those decades ago, as the alternative. None of Sir Henry Cecil’s star performer’s 14 unbeaten runs – all at ten furlongs or shorter – needed a performance to match Sea Bird’s 1965 Arc when he obliterated a line-up of world-class animals and future stallions. But enough of that, Think Big were happy enough to settle for a Frankel! [There aren’t many Sea Bird’s about these days – Ed.]

At one stage over the winter period, Carlton’s hurdles rating – earned at the time of his previous incarnation – wasn’t far short of his flat mark. Two wins, the second a landslide of Andy Burnham’s leadership non-election proportions, brought it to a still manageable 105, but alas Ascot stopped all thoughts of that.

He had finished with great and possibly surprising vigour to be fourth in the Chester Plate, consolation race for the Chester Cup in early May. Maybe you would have thought a run in the second phase of the Northumberland Plate would have been a good idea, but Mick Godderidge, Philip Simmonds, Edmund O’Connor and Leroy Oxley much preferred the prospect of togging up for Royal Ascot.

Even at the elevated mark of 82, Carlton would never have got into the Ascot Stakes, so the Queen Alexandra, final race of the meeting and over 2m5f, was the only possibility.

The boys must have arrived at the track with hopes of a bit of a show for their money, and just before the home turn, Cieren Fallon still had him in the first three, admittedly rowing way. Then, Ryan Moore on favourite and eventual winner Illinois, one of several rated around two stone Carlton’s superior, tightened him up and it appeared to cause Carlton to stumble and instantly lose several positions.

To that end, it was a valiant effort to beat three horses home including the well-backed Willie Mullins runner Columbus (rated 109), but on pulling up it was clear that the race had brought its downside.

Meanwhile, Owen had been to Doncaster sales a month earlier and picked up a dual-purpose performer from the Harry Fry yard, the seven-year-old gelding High Fibre, winner at that stage of two hurdle races (from 15 starts and a rating of 122) and one on the flat (rating 79) from ten appearances.

The price was £15k and James, after Carlton’s Ascot mishap, suggested to Carlton’s co-partners that High Fibre might make a suitable replacement.

I was in the owners’ room after the end of proceedings on the second day of the July meeting at Newmarket, even managing to blag a food ticket for Philip, when they said a horse that they would probably be taking over ownership was running over 1m4f in a late race at York.

We watched closely and the way he stayed on into third place without being asked an over-serious question impressed me. I reckoned that they should have been delighted, not realising only a portion of the tale had been available to me.

A few days later High Fibre was on the much underestimated and underused schooling grounds by Newmarket golf club. Owen, who has done miracles equally with jumpers as with flat horses, had four to school and one was High Fibre with Alex Chadwick doing the honours. The school was to determine High Fibre’s readiness for a challenge for last Saturday’s fifty grand Summer Hurdle. He passed that test and when it became known that champion jockey Sean Bowen would be available, the die as they say was cast.

Thirteen horses were declared on Thursday morning, with High Fibre propping them all up on bottom-weight of 10st7lb. When the first prices came out, Mick was amazed to see his “not yet” horse was available at 20/1. Mick’s business acumen had sealed a deal whereby the quartet would agree to buy the horse from the trainer, paying all the training fees before paying for the horse itself in the near future.

Mick followed up his original bet with one more at 16’s and a third at 12/1. When I saw him resplendent in full Hawaii mode, floppy tea shirt and shorts at Newmarket last Friday, his attire contrasted starkly with Philip’s. Old-school to the core, Phil wore smart jacket and tie, befitting the paddock of the 2,000 Guineas over on the other course, rather than for yet another after-racing concert from evergrey Madness on a Friday night.

Philip said he hadn’t supported him yet but intended having “A nice each-way bet in the morning”. I hope he wasn’t too dismayed to see that by 7 a.m. he was around 7/1 and, by 9 a.m., a strong second favourite at 4/1!

Philip and Leroy attended the meeting, but Mick and Ed could not. Mick said, “Sometimes life, and selling used cars, can get in the way!”

In the race, Bowen soon had him nicely placed behind the leaders who were setting a strong pace. He didn’t hold his position down the back straight second time around the sharp Market Rasen circuit, but Sean held on to him, and kept him wide in the home straight, guaranteeing him an uninterrupted run home.

It wasn’t until going to two out that High Fibre could be seen to be moving up fast. By the last flight, he had got into a share of second place, but the leader, Indemnity, despite conceding 21lb, was five lengths clear and apparently impossible to catch. A mistake there though interrupted his momentum, and High Fibre made mincemeat of him, turning that deficit into a near three-length winning margin.

Later Mick said, “No doubt I will have my account closed. Bookmakers don’t like it when you back any winner, but when it’s 20/1 about a 7/2 shot, they appreciate it even less.”

After the race, Sean Bowen reported that while they were going round, he was thinking High Fibre needed another half mile, but the way he finished off, maybe they could keep the horse to two miles for now.

Having watched Owen’s style in the few seasons he has been training, I reckon High Fibre could well be one for longer-distance handicaps on the flat. Seeing how he handles fast ground, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine his winning a race or two and earning a place in the Cesarewitch field.

One thing I can be sure of, though. Nobody will be getting 20/1 about him next time, be it on the flat or over the jumps.

Irish Oaks Day on The Curragh on Saturday started with the unwelcome news that Joseph O’Brien’s Epsom Oaks winner Thundering On would not be risked on the fast ground. Joseph and Irish champion jockey Dylan Browne McMonagle had a more than adequate deputy as Johanna Walsh romped to a four-length success. This Sea The Stars filly is improving fast, overturning a narrow defeat by Earth Shot in the Ribblesdale Stakes at Royal Ascot to the tune of almost 12 lengths.

There’s one event from Friday night that I cannot get out of my head. Long-term friend Steve Howard had a table of pals in the Newmarket owners’ room and Michelle, one of his group and only recently a convert to racing, had a speculative £5 single line on the Tote Placepot.

When the ticket came back, her selection in the fourth leg was a non-runner and the Tote substituted it as is normal, with the favourite. Unfortunately, the non-runner made it a seven-runner and therefore two places only race.

Subsequently, she did find the winner of that race, Tom Clover’s Rocking Ends, and backed it singly, but it was second favourite rather than the expected favourite at the off. The favourite finished third! Sod’s Law.

Imagine the frustration, all the other five selections won, respectively at 10/11, 15/8, Evens, 3/1 and can you believe it, 25/1! The Placepot that night paid £50.90 to a £1 stake, so she should if life was fair, have collected £254.00 for her fiver. Imagine though had she linked the six in a £5 win accumulator, she would have been more than £16,000 better off! I’ve never seen the like of that before in all my years of racing and punting!

- TS

Monday Musings: Whisper it…

13 July 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Mention it quietly, the youngsters are coming, writes Tony Stafford. Saturday’s July Cup at Newmarket was a refreshing change as future champion jockey Billy Loughnane teamed up for the first time with Aidan’s youngest, Donnacha O’Brien, and collected the big prize with 11/1 shot Commanche Brave.

Commanche Brave, a four-year-old son of Wootton Bassett – who else? – had been only seventh but less than three lengths behind the winner Almeraq in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot, but now, nicely poised all the way, never looked likely to be beaten.

The nature of top-class sprints at a period of no outstanding divisional champion is to have a host of contenders still in the mix going into the closing stages. It was slightly the other way around at Newmarket, five others keeping on, three from unpromising positions, to get within hailing distance of the winner. The first six were again within less than three lengths.

While Almeraq in ninth didn’t live up to his form from the Royal meeting, both Commonwealth Cup heroine Venetian Sun and Japan raider and 2/1 favourite Satono Reve, who was second to Almeraq last time, had been there all the way to take the minor places.

Just over a length back in third, Satono Reve was sending another compliment, as if he needed one, to Hong Kong’s finest, Ka Ying Rising, who had him a grovelling second, more than four lengths back, when they met at Sha Tin in April. It would be great if Ascot could entice his connections to let him come over for next year’s Royal meeting.

Last weekend, Donnacha O’Brien had achieved an excellent performance with sister Ana’s A Boy Named Susie when second to Constitution River in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown. There was a further family connection this weekend; Aidan and wife Anne-Marie’s Whisperview Trading Ltd are the breeders of Commanche Brave.

For the parents, that took away some of the pain from the less than brilliant effort of another Ascot winner, Mission Central, aiming to stretch out over an extra furlong from his win at the minimum in the King Charles III Stakes. He was one of the first beaten when the field set off up the climb towards the finish.

It was a mixed week for Aidan, with both Precise on Friday – never going fast enough to peg back Andrew Balding’s Blue Bolt in the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes – and on Saturday coming out second in a drawn-out conclusion to the Superlative Stakes. In this, both his odds-on shot Abraham Lincoln and market rival Charlie Appleby’s Al Hubaida showed greenness before the latter got the verdict on the line.

The earlier two-year-old maiden brought a win to Ballydoyle, via Justify colt Haffner over Godolphin’s Al Wathba, the latter a colt by Wootton Bassett. This was the race where last year Appleby’s Distant Storm came out on top with none other than Constitution River as the runner-up.

As usual, the multiplicity of top meetings on Saturday will have annoyed the purists. York had the John Smith’s Handicap and a Group 3 heading its card; Ascot had a Group 2 and another Heritage handicap, matching the Bunbury Cup at Newmarket as a major back-up to the top events.

Even Chester, relegated to only fourth-place status, would no doubt have attracted its usual massive crowd. Their feature was a £34k seven-furlong Listed, while all the other seven races on an eight-race card carried identical win money of £7,731. Still, any winner’s a winner!

I would love the July meeting to revert to its traditional Tuesday to Thursday slot, leaving Ascot and York to have a more dominant position in the Calendar. There were 16,000 people on the July Course on Thursday, Ladies Day, but only half that number on Friday.

I had a nice chat with quite a few trainers over the first two days at Newmarket but neglected to quiz Ian Williams whether he fancied anything for the Saturday. Of course, I should have asked him his thoughts about Aalto, going for a second win after his 2024 victory in the Bunbury Cup – one of my favourite handicaps ever since Pinctada, who originally raced in my colours, won the race for Terry Ramsden in 1988.

Last year, Aalto was caught in the final stride in the race by More Thunder, nowadays a Group-race performer for William Haggas. Now, from the foot of the handicap, and running off 5lb lower, no wonder he and William Buick headed the market. He won comfortably and no doubt will continue to be a feature in valuable handicaps.

I know I often turn this article around to stuff that’s happened to me as in the Pinctada episode. The summer before his Bunbury Cup success, he won six races in a period of 20 days for Rod Simpson at a time when horses could run for almost three weeks after a win with just a single penalty if the timing was right. Glory days.

More recently, I have owed a debt of gratitude to Raymond Tooth. The world-famous family lawyer signed me up in 2007 and for most of the time since Ray punched above his weight. Now, in his mid-80’s he has finally decided to retire and close his Sears Tooth law firm.

I was grateful to be given the role of racing manager at a time when several part-time jobs that I had after taking early retirement from the Daily Telegraph evaporated away.

We first met on the day Punjabi was a runaway 19-length winner of the Grade 2 Adonis Hurdle at Kempton, introduced through mutual friend Derek Hatter. Coincidentally, he was looking for someone to ease the burden of keeping up with 30 horses in training along with his demanding day job.

In the winner’s room, my credentials were advanced to him by my long-time acquaintance, the late Brod Munro-Wilson, who was also there that day. Years before, I had bought Talon, a staying jumper for Brod. He was one of 12 winners in a single day, one Boxing Day, yet another record set by Michael Dickinson. Can you match that one, Dan Skelton?

Punjabi went on to win a Champion Hurdle for Nicky Henderson, not bad for a one-time seven-furlong handicapper on the flat and a £42k HIT sales buy out of the Geraldine Jones yard. Some trainer, that Henderson!

It wasn’t just on the NH side of things that Ray enjoyed success. He paid £25k for a yearling filly by Indian Ridge with Richard Hannon. The year before we met, she collected almost £140k when winning a sales race for juveniles and went on to win the Cheveley Park Stakes.

After finishing just behind the placed horses at Newmarket, she missed out on a run in the Irish 1,000 Guineas, Richard waiting for the Coronation Stakes at the Royal meeting. It rained heavily on the morning of the race, and Steve and Kevin Howard, my pals, had a right old killing along with a couple of their mates, at well beyond the 8/1 starting price.

Richard Hughes waited before sending her into full stride a furlong from home and, amazingly in view of the opposition, which included the winners (in order of finish) of the German (Mi Emma), French (Darjina), English and Irish (Finsceal Beo) 1,000 Guineas among the 13-runner field, she obliterated them all.

Indian Ink strode majestically clear to win by six lengths, a performance that brought a 2million gns bid from Hamdan Al Maktoum’s Shadwell Stud at the end of the year. The one sadness for Ray, and me to a lesser extent, was the fact she never raced again after that Coronation Stakes, while many of her “victims” continued to thrive.

Ray’s last big winner came after he was recommended to French trainer Nicolas Clement by agent Charlie Gordon-Watson. After an unremarkable start, Nicolas suggested he find one for Raymond himself and he came up with the already-named French Fifteen, a colt by Turtle Bowl, bought at the sales in France as a yearling for €30k.

He won five in a sequence of six races as a two-year-old, culminating in the comfortable success in the Group 1 Criterium International at Saint-Cloud. Within a few days, French Fifteen had been sold to Qatari connections and he came across to Newmarket the following May to run Camelot close in the 2,000 Guineas – some performance against the O’Brien colt before his Derby success.

As I said, Raymond always punched above his weight, like his long-time right-hand man Steve Gilbey. Both men have been true friends and have been valued life advisors to me for the best part of 20 years. I hope Ray continues to enjoy good health and retains the knack of picking out winning patents from his modest wagers in the Star Sports betting shop in Mayfair.

Monday Musings: Where are the Brits?

6 July 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

The £5 million mark for Aidan O’Brien in the UK this year has easily been passed, Constitution River and to a lesser extent his third-placed stablemate Hawk Mountain seeing to that in Saturday’s Coral-Eclipse Stakes, writes Tony Stafford.

The Sandown victory made it 12 Group 1 wins in a season already for the stable and most commentators seemed to be calling it a formality that he would exceed his own worldwide season’s best of 28. Just 16 to go – still sounds a lot to me.

Amid the euphoria about Constitution River, fully deserved after the style of his triumph in a race which might not have gone entirely to plan, we need to examine the dearth of home talent either capable of or certainly willing to take on the O’Brien stars this year.

In the Irish Derby, the nearest UK runner behind an O’Brien 1-2-3 was Owen Burrows with the much-fancied Raaheeb in fourth, eight lengths behind the winner Benvenuto Cellini. Richard Hannon was the only other raider from these shores and his Bunyola Bay, after briefly helping make the pace, finished a tailed-off last of eight.

On Saturday, three from home challenged four O’Brien runners, three for Aidan and one for his younger son Donnacha. The market suggested either Saddadd (Roger Varian) or Gethin (Burrows again) would get in amongst them, Gethin even having the services of his owner’s King’s Gambit (Harry Charlton) as the pacemaking counter to Coolmore’s Flushing Meadows. Both are four-year-olds, so where was the home Classic generation?

Gethin had been a close second to Ombudsman last time out while Saddadd had limbered up with a third to Almaqam and Bay City Roller in the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh in May.

Both started 4/1, although Gethin had been much shorter earlier in the week. Market confidence in the favourite grew the closer to race time it got and the performance showed that this time the Ballydoyle bush telegraph was in full working order.

Saddadd did show with some promise going to two out until Ryan Moore employed overdrive on the winner and that was that. As with Raaheeb in the Irish Derby, he was eight lengths back at the line. Gethin had already shot his bolt by that time, a brief flirtation with the lead early in the straight quickly evaporating to the extent that he was another seven lengths back in fifth, with only the gasping pacemakers in his wake.

There will be more than enough comment on the winner who, after all, had under Ryan overcome the difficulty of an apparently impossible outside draw to win the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby) ahead of Hawk Mountain and another stablemate, Montreal.

The margin between the pair was extended from three-parts of a length to more than three and the argument that he would have won the Derby had he been routed to Epsom rather than Chantilly grows ever more convincing.

Now though it’s the Juddmonte, Irish Champion and our Champion Stakes – stallion-maker events all. As I hinted earlier in the piece, however, there’s another intriguing angle to this story. In a determined second place, just nudging ahead of Hawk Mountain close home, was A Boy Named Susie.

You may wonder why a colt would be given such a name. People of my age group know that the great film actor John Wayne was born Marion. This has a simpler explanation: the colt’s mum was called Soho Susie, a daughter of Montjeu, the great Coolmore stallion and Galileo’s counterpart for so many years at the stud. The Johnny Cash song, A Boy Named Sue must be the reason and a clever one too. Nobody will forget his name!

Soho Susie is also the half-sister to Tony O’Callaghan’s prolific winner-producing stallion Mehmas. Anne O’Callaghan, Tony’s wife, is John Magnier’s sister.

A Boy Named Susie, trained by Donnacha, is owned by his sister Ana. I always loved seeing her full given name Anastasia in racecards when she was a highly promising jockey until injury curtailed her career.

She entrusted her brother with the training of A Boy Named Susie, unlike two other nice horses that elder brother Joseph handled for her to win races before selling profitably later. This colt, a 200k son of Coolmore’s Starspangledbanner, made a winning start with a three-length stroll at Killarney last summer.

You might have expected a graduated campaign, but Donnacha launched his sister’s pride and joy immediately into Group company and, so far, they have yet to be rewarded with another win.

Never mind, the prizemoney tally is now up to £370k from seven subsequent runs. He has been second three times, third once and fourth on another three occasions, but the progression has been steady and consistent.

And the names of the winners of those seven races? His second two-year-old race produced a promising fourth in the Irish EBF Futurity (Group 2) behind Constitution River. Another Group 2 fourth place followed, albeit last of four but only five lengths adrift of Benvenuto Cellini in the Champion Juvenile Group 2 at Leopardstown.

He stepped up next time with a short-head second to Christmas Day in the Group 3 Eyrefield Stakes at Leopardstown and wound up for the year with another second, two lengths behind Pierre Bonnard in the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud.

Things didn’t get any easier in 2026, starting out with third to Christmas Day in the time-honoured Derby trial, the Group 3 Ballysax Stakes at Leopardstown. Then it was on to Chantilly for fourth in the Jockey Club and thence his finest hour on Saturday in the Eclipse.

The winners thus of his seven races since that debut have been Constitution River three times, Benvenuto Cellini, Christmas Day twice and Pierre Bonnard. “Dad, could you forget to enter anything next time?” could be the obvious refrain from Donnacha. “No chance, son. You find something I haven’t spotted!”

The horses that have won his races have gone on to success in the Derby (Christmas Day), Irish Derby (Benvenuto Cellini), French Derby and Eclipse (Constitution River), The only “flop” if you could call him that is Pierre Bonnard, just the third in the Irish Derby on the credit side since he beat Susie in France last October.

But where oh where are our Group 1 middle-distance horses? A look through Horses In Training shows legions of expensively bought and classically bred middle-distance animals in several powerful yards in Newmarket, Lambourn and elsewhere. Does the trials programme get going too late as against such races as the Ballysax early on in Ireland?

Whatever the reason, the big home teams haven’t been able to stem the tide. You thought King Canute had a tough job! After Sandown, O’Brien senior is already more than five-eighths of the way towards his record tally of £8.3 million set two years ago with the help of City Of Troy – and he still has that brilliant horse’s progeny to come on stream.

The future’s grim, the future’s Coolmore!

It was sad to hear of the death of Graham Bradley at 65. He hadn’t been in the best of health for some time. Despite spending many years trying to atone for earlier misdemeanours, this most stylish of jockeys was never allowed a licence to train.

Having been in the Michael Dickinson yard in its heyday and as the winner of the 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup on Bregawn, heading home the Famous Five, he would have had plenty of expertise to make the transition to trainer.

He wouldn’t have been the first or last brilliant jump jockey to lose his way, but it seemed he was always the one marked out for “special” negative treatment by racing’s authorities.

Equally, it was also sad to hear of the passing of Peter Waney, whose West End restaurants Zuma and Meraki have long been a feature of the London scene.

Karachi-born, Waney and his family moved to Mumbai at the time of the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. He later became a long-standing owner with the Hannon stable. The only time I went to a Waney restaurant was when Ray Tooth took his staff (and me, thanks Ray!) to Dubai a decade or so ago. Waney arranged to squeeze the dozen or so of us in an otherwise fully booked evening session at Zuma and the food was delightful. Farewell Peter, your many racing friends will miss you.

- TS

Monday Musings: Easy As…

29 June 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

One, two, three, it’s easy as ABC, or rather it’s easy as shelling peas for AOB, writes Tony Stafford.

It was thought in some circles beforehand that Irish Derby win number 18 might have been threatened by the unbeaten and highly regarded Owen Burrows-trained Shadwell colt Raaheeb.

Backed down to 11/4 second favouritism here, behind Betfred Derby phantom non-runner (that ran!) Benvenuto Cellini, he did win the race for the non-Ballydoyle team.

For the record, this one-two-three was led by Frankel’s son Benvenuto Cellini (Ryan Moore) by almost two lengths, from Christmas Day and his Epsom partner Ronan Whelan, with Pierre Bonard an honourable third just behind. Raaheeb beat the rest by five lengths, but trailed home half a dozen lengths behind Pierre Bonnard and Wayne Lordan.

So Ryan got his second Derby win of the year, following on from the Prix du Jockey Club when he and Constitution River led home Hawk Mountain and Montreal over the ten and a half furlongs at Chantilly for a rather less overwhelming Coolmore trifecta.

That makes it at least half a dozen O’Brien three-year-old colts that will continue to dominate Group 1 middle-distance races for the rest of the year.

While not everyone agreed with the declaring of Benvenuto Cellini a non-runner, one who was vocal in applauding the decision was Peter Brant, in whose green colours the son of Frankel runs, but with all the usual Coolmore team as partners.

Brant is also on the team associated with Christmas Day. Like the regulars, he now has the Irish and English Derby winners in his ownership and the 28 lengths by which Benvenuto Cellini trailed home his teammate at Epsom has been officially expunged from the records. As in, “It wasn’t me, guv!”

The main plank of Peter’s justification was that Ryan was unable to take up the prominent position that had been planned for at Epsom. He couldn’t, he said, owing to that odd “caught up in the framework” incident, but he wasn’t all that close early on yesterday either as the team’s outsider Action set a fast pace from Christmas Day.

While he did show impressive pace to catch Christmas Day once Action had faded away, neither the second nor the third did anything to diminish his reputation. Both placed colts are by Camelot and must be among the prime contenders to maintain Coolmore and O’Brien’s customary strong hand in the St Leger.

Apart from the Irish Oaks, that pretty much does it for the spring/summer 2026 Classics and if hadn’t been for Bow Echo and George Boughey, this year would have been almost a whitewash for the O’Brien team.

I’ve been waiting for a suitable time to contradict everyone else’s pronunciation of the 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes winner’s name.

George Hill, whose granddaughter Grace Learoyd-Hill, 20, won a big showjumping class for senior newcomers at Newport on Saturday – a star for the future he hopes, any sponsor out there? – tells me the Bow should be pronounced as Bough. It relates to the echo from the bow of a boat. You heard it here first.

If the Derby form from Epsom stood up well this weekend, the Oaks suffered a less satisfactory result when easy English winner Thundering On (Joseph O’Brien) could finish only fourth behind the five-year-old mare Estrange in the Pretty Polly Stakes.

David O’Meara has had to be patient with the Cheveley Park Stud-owned mare, who was running for only the ninth time (six wins) in her career. The long-held plan has been the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and that looks ever more feasible – even though Coolmore and the French will throw everything at her. She better get it done this October as top geldings like Calandagan and Goliath will be eligible to run in it twelve months hence. “Mon Dieu”, said M. Fabre.

I was interested to catch Dan Skelton yesterday talking about his season’s target which remains aiming to beat Martin Pipe’s record of 243 wins in a single jumps campaign, set in 1999/2000.

We kept watching almost in awe as his prize money tally for the term ending late April approached and then passed £5 million. His 194 winners from 1,094 runners realised £5,045,615. Putting that in perspective, O’Brien has won 40 races in Ireland this flat season, with earnings exceeding €3 million. I doubt it will be long before he passes Skelton’s 2025/26 tally in the UK this year. His 15 2026 wins have contributed to £4,679,151 win and place earnings.

And it won’t be getting easier for anyone to challenge him for the top prizes next season. A series of smart juvenile winners over the three days of the Irish Derby weekend was climaxed by the scintillating six-length romp of Sea The Stars filly Alpha in the opening seven-furlong fillies’ maiden yesterday.

A smart-looking and pedigree-powerful squad opposed this filly who was making her second start. Ryan took her to the front from the outset and she made all to beat stablemate Ibelieveicanfly by an easy six lengths.

When the two fillies made their debuts together a few weeks back, Ryan rode Ibelieveicanfly and Wayne Lordan was on Alpha, the pair going off as 2/1 joint-favourites, finishing in second and fourth respectively.

Ryan was on the right one this time and having been one and a half lengths Ibelieveicanfly’s superior then, she emphatically extended the margin. The winner’s dam, Alpha Centauri, was a top-class filly rated 123. If ever there was a long-range Oaks candidate, surely Alpha must be an early front-runner.

Having endured those unreal temperatures at the backend of last week, I must applaud the decision of the BHA to stage early-morning fixtures rather than afternoon programmes. The French have been doing it for ages – their meetings last week at Deauville (8.30 am) and Chantilly at 8.45, so an hour earlier here, were halfway done before Doncaster began at 10.15am.

My mate Richard Farnese won’t have been happy. There is a tradition with many Yarmouth racecourse regulars to stop off on the way to the track to his Café La Continental for a sumptuous breakfast. I confess to that predilection.

I cannot bear the thought of all those superb all-day breakfasts going uneaten. A race sponsor at Yarmouth for many years, I trust Richard will have been on site last week to remind everyone that he would still be open for breakfasts after the last race at 1 pm.

- TS

Monday Musings: A Thrilling Ascot

22 June 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Considering how fit he looked the last time I saw him on one of his visits with the Aidan O’Brien team last year, it’s almost unfathomable that it’s 36 years (27 January 1990 to be exact) that Dean Gallagher outrode the top-class Graham McCourt to guide Willsford home first in a staying chase at Cheltenham for the Jenny Pitman stable, writes Tony Stafford.

Two runs and two races later, McCourt and Norton’s Coin gained their revenge over Jenny, this time as a 100/1 shot in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Sirrell Griffiths saddled the winner, with Toby Tobias and Mark Pitman a close runner-up ahead of the odds-on Desert Orchid in third.

Mark Pitman stepped into the Gold Cup top spot a year later with Garrison Savannah, beating off the top French horse The Fellow in a tight finish. After his riding career, Mark Pitman had some productive years as a trainer but it’s been a while since he held a licence.

Dean had a tricky time of it with Jenny. I’ve often wondered whether the presence of her son in the yard put a subconscious antipathy towards a man whose riding talent was clear to most as being superior to that of his colleague and rival.

At this point I should declare an interest. I knew Dean’s father Tom from the days he worked as a travelling head lad for Jim Bolger. I think he may already have left for a similar role with Dermot Weld when he called and said that Dean needed a change of scene and could I get him a job in England?

At that time, I was involved with several horses in the Rod Simpson yard and, as with Simon Whitworth whose solicitor father Eric contacted me with a similar request at around the same time, I suggested Rod. They both moved there but Dean was too heavy to ride exclusively on the flat and the switch to a jumps yard was sensible. I’ve since mulled whether an offer from Martin Pipe for Dean to join as his conditional rider would have been a better move, but Rod and a couple of his major owners persuaded him to stay. Also, one of the many changes in the Rules might have proved a problem too had he joined.

At Jenny’s, Dean shared the winners and to some extent the rides with Mark, but the relationship with the trainer was apparently never easy and one morning on the gallops, Dean snapped, untacked his horse and walked back to the yard with his saddle - but without the horse. If it’s not true, Dean, I have heard the story enough times to believe it is!

From there it wasn’t a career path strewn with roses but eventually he teamed up with owner Paul Green and for him rode the ex-French Hors La Loi III to victory in the 2002 Champion Hurdle, trained by James Fanshawe.

Later, he was mainly associated with the top French yard of Frederic Cottin riding four Grade 1s and many other Graded race winners across the Channel.

Since remarrying and settling down close to Ballydoyle, he is one of many other top former race riders – Adrian Maguire another – whose skills have been appreciated by Aidan. Here he was – I wasn’t as you know – in the entourage with his regular morning ride, Scandinavia, who won that epic Gold Cup duel on Thursday against the brave Trawlerman.

Mark Pitman was also there, as his former riding colleague Luke Harvey pointed out before a race later in the week, helping the stalls team load up the massive fields that were a frequent feature of many races. One horse was particularly explosive before its race and Mark was deposited on his backside right in front of the ITV cameras. Happily, he got up grinning. There’s something about racing. If it’s in your blood, it takes a lot to get rid of it!

If there was some excitement to be had at the despatch area, never can an Ascot crowd have been as thrilled by so many tight finishes. If you take the purely arbitrary notion of half a length – a margin that rightly could convince supporters of more than one horse in any race that they would be in with a chance right up to the line – an amazing 23 of the 35 races were settled by that amount or less.

Both on the Tuesday and Thursday, all seven races were so concluded and on Saturday only the opening Norfolk Stakes, won thrillingly by three-and-a-half lengths by the Clive Cox-trained and Rossa Ryan-ridden Orthodox, escaped the narrow margin parameters.

His win was my highlight of the week in talent terms. Five furlongs anywhere requires terrific speed, but on quick ground at Ascot with three Wesley Ward “rockets” setting the pace, each on its designated portion of Berkshire, it didn’t need much imagination to believe a come-from-behind horse would prevail.

I’ll never grow tired of watching Rossa bringing the son of Havana Grey through at the furlong pole to challenge two of the Wesley runners. He sluiced past them, quickly opening up a winning distance that was only exceeded by Ombudsman as he obliterated a rallying Minnie Hauk and Daryz by four lengths in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes.

The Norfolk is usually the best guide to the future sprinting hierarchy. Orthodox might have won by seven or eight lengths had he been able to tackle the extra furlong of a Coventry or, from this year, the Listed Windsor Castle, but Clive loves his sprinters and no doubt will have his plans.

The obvious route would be the Gimcrack and Middle Park over six. How about, though, taking on the much less defined older generations in the Nunthorpe and the Prix de l’Abbaye staying at the minimum?

Watching from home had its downside. Marmite Chapman, shoes (or were they spats?) providing an instant antipathy, is getting above even himself. The post-race demarcation was illustrated with Orthodox’s win, Rishi Persad telling Clive Cox he would require speaking to Chapman as if trainers’ opinions were above his pay grade. It fell to him only to speak to jockeys.

As well as the post-race duties, Matt now has free rein to roam the paddock and tell trainers before their races how the jockey should ride their horses. The irritating way he dogged William Haggas through the week made one wonder what reaction he would have got from William’s late father-in-law. “Something off!” would be my best bet.

I’m surprised that the highly talented Fozzy Stack, having endured a second sycophantic few seconds – it seemed longer – from Matt, to have as a parting shot when he was already walking away as, “You’re a good trainer!” must have been fuel enough for him to come back and deck the self-styled arbiter of all racing knowledge.

I didn’t hear it at the time, but after hearing advice from Chapman as how best to ride his horse, world-leading jockey James McDonald was heard – I’m told – to reply: “How many winners have you ridden, mate?”

But it’s an entertainment business, moved jollily and knowledgeably along by Ed Chamberlin, with loyal lieutenants Jason Weaver, Francesca Cumani and Adele Mulrennan, showing their respective abilities. There’s also, of course, the true expert, Ruby Walsh, what an asset! Some of it gets repetitive, not least the genuflecting to Kevin Blake. Then again, as Matt would presumably say, “How many Derby third placed finishers have you bought for 50 grand?”

Joseph O’Brien readily acknowledges Blake’s contribution to the planning that brought five Ascot wins and three second places, bettered only by two more wins for Aidan, seven representing a joint best for him over 30 years as he went past the career century during the meeting.

You only need to look on the list which reveals trainers that have had at least one third place to see some unexpected names among the non-winners. I wonder if Chapman, if he even finds time to trouble speaking to them, would he say, “Hi there, …, you’re a bad trainer!”?

- TS

Monday Musings: Nasty Business

15 June 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

I’ll be missing the whole of Royal Ascot this week, so the freshly cleaned morning suit will remain on its hanger in the wardrobe, writes Tony Stafford. But the reason for it - ten days’ puppy watch while the beloved takes an educational language trip to Italy – brought home to me yet another reason why the UK is rapidly becoming the nastiest, most cynical and rapacious country in Europe

It’s long been annoying that Stansted airport – other airports are similarly greedy - charges a not inconsiderable amount just for dropping off a passenger at the Terminal. On Saturday, something since my last visit appeared to have changed.

I had never noticed directions to free drop-off – involves a bus – but this time I did. Anxious for a quick departure though, we made our way directly to the Terminal knowing a payment was needed. All my previous visits had involved paying by card at the end of the road after the Terminal but this time, all there is to see is a sign saying, “don’t forget to pay by tomorrow.”

At 3.30 am I jolted awake – “payment!” Trying to get on the right site, my bleary eyes were drawn to “airport-service.co.uk”. I went through the steps and was shocked to see an overall charge of £26, £10 for payment and £16 additional for “service”. So, £26 for a one-minute slide through.

I knew I’d never paid even as much as £10 before and luckily, I was sufficiently awake to hesitate before pressing the button. I scanned the page again and noticed somewhere – “there are cheaper ways to pay this charge” or something of the like. I think it’s only when you get as close to paying as I had that this message appears.

“Airport-service.co.uk” was close enough to the top of the list that all drop-offees must visit - in second place behind the airport’s own payment site. The skilfully worded legend must draw many equally initially gullible people as me every day. Just while I was there, there was a non-stop succession of cars and taxis unloading. Nice work for the airport whether it was on their site or on that of the oh-so-helpful “Service” crowd, that no doubt passes on the tenner and pockets the rest.

There has been much discussion about the damaging effect of the internet on under-16s and the possible moves to ban them from using it over the past few days. How about a more general cleaning-up so that companies like Airport-service.co.uk are no longer allowed to fleece the public with such bare-faced misdirection?

So you’ve guessed. I’m annoyed to miss the five racing days of the year that I anticipate above all others – even more so than those two lovely spells at York with Mr and Mrs Cannon.

Those of you who can go will have a first-day feast in the clashes between the Charlie Appleby pair of Notable Speech and Opera Ballo and the William Haggas-trained More Thunder in the Queen Anne Stakes, and then the rematch between the 2,000 Guineas 1-2 Bow Echo (George Boughey) and Gstaad (Aidan O’Brien) in the St James’s Palace Stakes.

The lure of Royal Ascot means that in both races there are talented horses waiting for a slip-up from the anticipated principals. The Queen Anne’s straight mile has been the source of a host of surprises, not least when Brook got the race in 1974 (I was there) upon the disqualification of the first three finishers. Docklands’ success at 12/1 in the race last year ought not to count as one of those.

Harry Eustace’s six-year-old has never been out of the first four in seven runs on the track and that sole fourth place was close up and barely a length behind the 100/1 winner Cicero’s Gift in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Champions Day over the course and distance last October. Since then, he has been clocking up the air miles and annexing foreign currency with a series of good runs in the Far East, either side of an easy win at Doncaster in March.

Again, though, has he the resources to withstand the sort of acceleration that the 2024 2,000 Guineas winner Notable Speech can unleash? The latest version of that came with a devastating burst to win a very competitive renewal of the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury a month ago.

Charlie can back him up with the seven-time-winning (from nine) Opera Ballo, whose demolition of Field Of Gold in the bet365 Mile at Sandown elevated him into an elite category.

Then there’s More Thunder, from the William Haggas team and the one singled out by Tom Marquand as the pick of his stables’ riches over the week. Haggas comes into the week in form, again with some spectacular results from his handicappers (really?) over the past few days.

I read an article quoting my old pal Kieran Fallon suggesting that maybe his son Cieren (different spelling - and accent!) could make a challenge for the jockeys’ title with Oisin this year. If he keeps getting on the right Haggas ones – he did on Saturday at York while Tom Marquand was messing around at Sandown, and had the pleasant task of a steering job, even after repeated blockages on his way through on Extremely Zain in a modestly-endowed for the day seven-furlong handicap.

Runing off 93 in a 0-95 handicap after two wins from two, Extremely Zain was the proverbial Group horse running in a handicap, except he was more probably a Group 1 horse dancing though a handicap. I don’t now how the handicapper was expected to put a figure on his initial wide-margin debut win and then narrow second victory in a Newbury novice.

He must have thought he was safe with 93. One hundred and three wouldn’t have made much difference. The much more valuable six-furlong sprint will seem – when it appears on the screen as a result or on paper if anyone still reads form in that way – much more closely-fought.

The truth is that Zac Lloyd, son of English-born but top Australian jockey Jeff, had everything well under control in that big field. Thunder Call was on 85. He’s another almost sure to get to three figures with a couple of well-chosen and remunerative stopping points along the way.

The rematch between Bow Echo and Gstaad will be the main item for many. At Newmarket, Bow Echo comfortably had the measure of Gstaad while both had the rest of the Classic field miles behind. Gstaad went on to win in Ireland but, with Bow Echo enjoying a steady build-up under Boughey’s single-minded approach, it’s hard to see how this unbeaten colt could be relinquishing his position at the top of the miling tree. I can’t wait to see him get his hands (hooves) on the older bunch.

In the far-off olden days, they would have had a runoff over four miles to decide things later in the day.

Talking of history, one of my favourite races down the years has been the Ascot Stakes. This year, the 20 runners include one from France, six from England and 13 from Ireland, including seven from Oaks-winning trainer Joseph O’Brien. Where have our staying handicappers gone?

James Owen does run one and I’m sure he wishes the lower-rated Carlton could have been high enough to get in; maybe he would have without the Irish logjam. He’ll probably run on Saturday in the level weights and slightly longer Queen Alexandra. The way he finished in the Chester Plate suggests he’ll stay the trip. Get your topper and tails ready, Mick!

I often sound off about handicappers, but in going for one of the non-Joseph Irish contingent, I admit the task in assessing a horse with one win on debut over 1m4f, a third place over 1m6f behind fellow Stakes entry Kizlyar (O’Brien), and then, from his mark of 91 from two outings, a smooth win last time over one mile, is a tricky one!

Now trainer Henry De Bromhead is asking his five-year-old Tim Toe to travel two and a half times as far. Champion Hurdles are one thing, but Henry also loves to go for the posh pots on the flat and this would be a splendid addition to his lengthy jumps honours board.

- TS

Monday Musings: Money Back!

8 June 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

How many races do you think have been started from stalls in the UK since the obscure rule change which caused such havoc in the Epsom betting ring after Christmas Day won the Betfred Derby on Saturday, writes Tony Stafford.

I would suggest thousands, but that woke alteration allowed the Epsom stewards to declare never-in-the-hunt Betfred Derby favourite Benvenuto Cellini a non-runner for getting his leg over (rather stuck in) the stalls. No doubt he’ll be getting his leg over in the proscribed way later in life. Yes, this weekend we saw the first running of the Woke Derby.

Imperfect starts have always been a part of racing. While on this very public occasion the finicky stewards decided to intervene after the fact, multiple examples of slow starts historically have been ignored.

Often on the flat, starters let the fields go, not noticing when one or more horses might be in various states of discomfort in the stalls, their jockeys imploring “wait sir, wait!” Either they do or they don’t, tough! How many times have we seen hoods coming off too late? What an unseemly dish to set before the King!

Then while jumping starts at the workaday meetings are allowed to go off where the jockeys want to be placed, at the big very public and most important meetings like Cheltenham and Aintree, again fussy officialdom often ruins the race. Multiple false starts and unsatisfactory standing still departures immediately end many horses’ chances before they go a yard.

Ahead of Saturday’s controversy, Christmas Day continued the theme that you can never ignore Aidan O’Brien’s “other runners” in the Derby. It proved a truism once more, the 7/1 winner attracting far more interest in the market than the favourite and even trumping presumed second choice Pierre Bonnard, a laboured seventh under Christophe Soumillon.

The key to finding the Derby winner is 1) with now ten of the last 15 winners (67%) of the race, it must be an Aidan horse. 2) if you ignore Ryan Moore who now has missed out on five of the last seven Coolmore winners, find a jockey that’s never got near winning it before, often one that’s never ridden in the race!

Step up Ronan Whelan. Like so many, Aidan included, Whelan spent plenty of time in his younger days with Jim Bolger. This is his second year as back up to Moore and super stand-in Wayne Lordan, and Epsom on Saturday was his ultimate reward.

It happened for Lordan with Lambourn last year and Lordan it was on the fourth O’Brien runner Action, who set the pace on Saturday with Christmas Day at his elbow. The other two Coolmore runners were held behind the nice even pace that Lordan excels at.

Into the straight it wasn’t long before Christmas Day took the lead, edging into the middle of the rain-softened ground and drawing away much as Lambourn and that other surprise O’Brien winner of the modern era, Serpentine, did in 2020. The difference this time was the ground. It had completely obliterated Calandagan in the £1 million Coolmore Coronation Cup earlier, won in spectacular fashion by George Scott’s Bay City Roller, and several in the Derby field were similarly inconvenienced.

Not Christmas Day though. His sire Camelot was an 8/13 shot when winning the race in 2012, the first of that run of ten in 15, with Joseph O’Brien in the saddle. Having beaten French Fifteen at Newmarket, it just needed the St Leger for him to emulate Nijinsky 42 years earlier. Encke has his name on the historical record but nobody believes him the moral winner.

With 14 runners contesting the prizes which went down from £1 million for the winner to £20k for tenth, there wasn’t much room for horses’ being eased, apart that was for the toiling Benvenuto Cellini who passed the post miles behind all bar last home Poker.

Though nothing ever seemed likely to catch the winner, with Maltese Cross, Joseph’s James J Braddock, and Bay Of Brilliance the next three home, I enjoyed seeing Julie Wood’s colours flashing home in fifth. Alderman earned his owner £80k, not bad for a horse rated only 83. Saturday’s 100/1 shot is in for a big hike tomorrow, but the thrill that the Richard Hannon colt gave her a day or so after her birthday is irreplaceable.

Very few owners stick as much to their principles and methods as Julie. While others wait until the yearling sales. Julie always buys foals on her own judgment. This one, a son of Study Of Man, cost 42,000gns at the foal sale in 2023 and has been well worth the wait. Many observers feel the lower limit of 80 for horses qualifying to run in the Derby should be raised. Mrs Wood, Hannon and Alderman are eloquent advocates of why it is fine as it is.

Sixth was another outsider, the Faye Bramey-trained Rebel Rocker, a 66/1 shot, although at 99, he was rated a full 16lb higher than the horse that ran past him in the closing stages. Faye has worked closely for a long time with A P McCoy and she is sure to have more success with Jennifer Dorey’s home bred.

Memories in horse racing are very short and I hadn’t remembered that Christmas Day started the 11/4 favourite for what many regard as the prime Derby trial, the Dante Stakes at York last month. He was comfortably put in his place in third by Item and, for a long time, that Andrew Balding-trained Juddmonte-owned colt was the biggest market threat to Saturday's favourite, winner of the Chester Vase as his trial.

But the ground was clearly a worry for Item as he drifted out to 11/2 before finishing a remote ninth. Christmas Day moved the other way in the market. Priced at 14/1 in the Racing Post forecast in the morning he started at half those odds and with the 25p in the pound deduction bookmakers could (although some did not) apply, that equates to nearer 5/1.

Camelot joins Galileo (four wins) and Australia, with Lambourn last year, as O’Brien Derby winners that then sired winners of the Classic. We always wondered which of the array of new stallions that would fill that area of Galileo’s brilliance. Camelot seems the most likely.

Friday’s Oaks was another O’Brien tour-de-force, but in this case it was son Joseph and the Frankel filly Thundering On that exploded past and away from the Gosdens’ well-supported Legacy Link by almost four lengths.

Until Thundering On appeared on the scene, victory seemed assured for Legacy Link as that Dubawi filly had taken it up from Sugar Island, least fancied of the three Aidan O’Brien runners at 25/1 and another daughter of Dubawi. I watched at close hand as Aidan saddled his three Oaks contenders in the paddock beforehand and had to smile when the first girth tried on the strapping Sugar Island failed to go around her by a good few inches. She is some physical specimen!

She looks one that will take her races going forward even though Thundering On was ten lengths ahead of her by the line. Sadly, my role as chief cheerleader fell flat. The boss’s 100/1 bet on favourite Amelia Earhart never looked like materialising. There’s aways next year, Matt!

If you were a trainer with a Derby (Motivator) and Oaks winner (Sariska) to your name, where would you prefer to have been on Saturday? Michael Bell found himself watching maybe 45 minutes of cricket al Lord’s on an awful day which not only spoilt the Test match for spectators on the worst pitch ever at the Headquarters of cricket, but also ruined hopes of a big attendance on the imaginatively improved Hill at Epsom.

At least Michael’s viewing of the Derby wasn’t interrupted, neither was his winner of a £51k race, £25k to the winner, that Blues And Royals won with a last-stride dip of the head at Musselburgh. Blues And Royals is in triple ownership, but I was delighted that the white colours, dark blue cap of Jonathan Barnett passed the line in front.

That’s three nice wins so far. Could he sneak into the Britannia, probably not, but that sort of win keeps owners happy. At least I had something to cheer on Saturday!

- TS

Monday Musings: Now I’ve Seen Everything

1 June 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Finally, after more than 70 years of watching horse racing, I can honestly say I’ve seen everything, writes Tony Stafford.

We’ve been used to witnessing Aidan O’Brien horses filling the first three positions in Classic races maybe not that frequently. It happens enough not to be a total surprise when it does. Never, though, I venture, have we seen anything to match the stage management that led to yesterday’s clean sweep in the Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby) at Chantilly.

Aidan’s trio finished the right way round in the end as favourite Constitution River, yes over there rather than at Epsom on Saturday in the “real” Derby, under a sublime Ryan Moore, edged out Hawk Mountain and Christophe Soumillon, with outsider Montreal, on their heels in third under an inspired ride from the front by reliable number two Wayne Lordan.

I wonder how many of the Ballydoyle entourage bothered or even thought to risk a little on the Tricast on the Pari-Mutuel. It paid €167.55 for a €1 stake!

Sixteen horses turned out for this 10.5 furlongs with Ryan drawn widest bar-one in 15, a position reckoned by many experts impossible from which to win. Those experts, including the extremely experienced Sky Sports Racing team on scene, reckoned Ryan would have to “drop in” to overcome the disadvantageous position.

Instead, he “dropped out” widest of all in clear isolation in the early running as Lordan from the middle aimed and effected a fast break to get to the inside. Soumillon was soon at the head of the big group up the middle, and you could understand the enormity of the favourite’s task as Constitution River was needing plenty of encouragement throughout the entire race as he was so wide as the turns unfolded.

By the time they had straightened for home, the Ballydoyle trio had worked their way into the podium places as Karl Burke’s Hankelow, echoing his prominent role in the French 2,000 Guineas, started to flag. He had finished a close third over the mile at Longchamp behind St James’s Palace-bound Rayif and yesterday’s rival Komorebi.

The stock of that race took a dive yesterday, Komorebi finishing only tenth and Burke’s horse fading away to 13^th.

Winding up for the final thrust a furlong from home, the three Coolmore colts were in a line. If anything, you were wondering, certainly I was, whether Montreal was going to spring the shock. Hawk Mountain, winner of last year’s Futurity at Doncaster where he beat next Saturday’s Epsom race favourite Benvenuto Cellini, was also fully extended, but Ryan was the one with the most resources at his disposal.

It wasn’t until the last 75 yards that the result was etched on the trophy with Michael Tabor’s blue edging out Derrick Smith’s purple, Sue Magnier’s second pink silks gracing the third home. That the final margin had stretched to threequarters of a length at the line suggested strongly that Constitution River would have had a favourite’s chance over another furlong and a half at Epsom had he been sent there.

For years, we’ve had the supreme hurdler turned nine-year-old embryo flat performer Constitution Hill as the most popular racehorse. Maybe Constitution River will do enough in his career to give pause for thought. The world as they say, is his – you know what.

And as if the O’Brien family didn’t have enough to celebrate yesterday, out of the pack into fourth came A Boy Named Susie. His trainer? None other than Aidan and Anne-Marie O’Brien’s younger son Donnacha and owned by his (Donnacha’s) sister Ana, no mean jockey herself until injury curtailed her career.

Yesterday’s winner and runner-up were among the 22 left in the Betfred Derby at the latest stage. The already humbled French – don’t fret mes chers, the English team were similarly blown away – do not have a single horse standing in the Classic unless connections wish to put up the requisite supplementary fee of £90,000 by noon today.

To recoup that, your horse would have to finish in the first four of the £1 million to the winner, and £2 million total, contest. Prizes for the Betfred Derby dribble down to tenth, almost in the way of the sales races for two-year-olds, but from a fittingly more handsome starting point.

The best that the home team could muster yesterday was the 37 grand picked up by fifth-home Alam. Aidan will be credited with £1.2 million in the French trainers’ prizemoney list or rather €1.37 million and the winner’s €857k (or if you prefer £745,000) will swell by another €282k as he is French-bred, while his stablemates are not. I wondered why they decided to go there!

Ana O’Brien’s 74 grand is likely to be swamped by what she can expect to field in offers for her colt from the ever-ravenous Australian stables who have so much money to spend.

As my old pal Lew Day told me the other week, he retained a half-share in his horse Raheen House when he went to race in Australia, there were maybe a hundred joint-owners sharing the other half, a worthwhile punt if you have the prizemoney to offer as they do.

I guess it’s possible there might be a supplementary entry or two, although whether anyone will be daring enough after this O’Brien 1-2-3 is debatable.

Suppose the bare 20 all stay in, that would mean ten for the home team including smart pair Item (Andrew Balding) and Maltese Cross (William Haggas) and again ten from Ireland, eight from Aidan and two trained by his elder son Joseph, including James J Braddock which got up late to beat Aidan’s Pierre Bonnard in the Cashel Palace Hotel Derby Trial at Leopardstown last time.

James J Braddock already has part Australian ownership, a group having acquired a share from noted Irish media expert (and Joseph advisor) Kevin Blake. Joseph bought the son of Zarak as a yearling for 40,000gns. His stud fee in France this year was €80k, so some bargain, never mind what he has already collected for his now part-owner. A share of the £1 million would still do nicely.

Benvenuto Cellini is now 2/1 best to make it 12 Derby wins for O’Brien and 13 for Michael Tabor. Item is only 4/1 now after that smooth Dante win at York, with Pierre Bonnard and Lingfield trial winner Maltese Cross coming next.

With the money after the winner standing at £400k; £200k; £130k; £80k; £50k; £35k; £30k; £25k and £20k, I wonder if we will see a Michael Dickinson-type domination on Saturday? Could the Famous Five of the 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup be usurped by a Superb Six, a Superlative Seven of even an Extraordinary Eight? Probably not, and for the home trainers with hopes of winning the most important prize in the calendar, let’s hope it doesn’t happen.

I’m sure that Saturday’s revelation of the 16 six-day acceptors (four supplementary) for Friday’s Oaks at Epsom brought the chill of dread to the Editor with Precise poised to line up with/against Amelia Earhart depending on your point of view.

Does the stretching-out to 1m4f for the first time of an ultra-impressive Guineas-winning filly trump the emphatic Cheshire Oaks-winning form at just a half-furlong or so short of the Classic trip of her stablemate?

It might not even be a case of whether Ryan Moore or Wayne Lordan rides which of the pair. Lordan rode True Love to win the 1,000 Guineas as Moore on Precise was a sleepy seventh. At the Curragh, a rejuvenated, if you can call it that after one run off a setback, Precise with Lordan up, slaughtered her old rival, now under Ryan, with the finishing speed of a true champion.

He’s done it successfully before, but will Aidan want to test his belief that Precise will stay another four furlongs so soon after the Curragh against the certainty of knowing she would be the one to beat if turning up for the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot? Nervy times – as I said, depending on your point of view.

What yesterday in Chantilly told us, is that even after all this time, Aidan O’Brien is getting better every year in his role as custodian of the Coolmore breeding operation. I’ll never again subscribe to the view that anything he attempts is unlikely to happen.

- TS

Monday Musings: Perfectly Precise

25 May 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

You can routinely analyse form as pounds for lengths, but as yesterday’s Irish 1,000 Guineas proved, expecting past form to be repeated is not always as Precise as experts might think it to be, writes Tony Stafford.

On a weekend where Aidan O’Brien and Ryan Moore had previously got everything right in tandem, including Saturday’s Irish 2,000 Guineas with Gstaad, along came Precise to make a monkey of Coolmore’s number one for the second time in less than a month.

Precise, a filly Ryan had never previously ridden owing to last autumn’s lengthy injury spell, was his mount as the 9/5 favourite in the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket. She finished only seventh as stable-companion True Love, for one race at least, dispelled any doubts about her stamina for a Classic mile.

True Love, as did Precise, had experience at the top level on her side but also proven fitness with a run this year. Ryan instead partnered the filly that O’Brien had referred to in the most glowing of terms as she went through the grades last autumn. Precise’s preparation for the Rowley Mile had been interrupted this spring, but despite this, confidence in her remained strong.

The Coolmore team never shrinks from giving a back-up to their number one contender in the big races and now at the Curragh Precise was the perceived number two. The reasoning is, if one can’t win it, maybe the other one can. As somebody very wise used to say, it’s not what you lose, it’s what you win, and Coolmore has not been for many years over-protective of its top horses.

The race split into two groups, and Ryan on the far side on True Love sat close to Godolphin’s Abashiri, who had been ahead of Precise in fifth at Newmarket. When Moore asked for her effort, she smoothly got to William Buick’s mount but took a while to settle the issue. Then, from the back of the stands-side sextet, Wayne Lordan, as on True Love at Newmarket, upset the expected Ballydoyle order.

Precise was regarded by O’Brien last year as one of the best juvenile fillies he had ever trained. It must be a source of great pride that she is a product of his family’s Whisperview Trading Ltd breeding operation. The speed she showed here to cut back the front two in half a furlong and then power two-and-a half lengths clear was truly exhilarating. Aidan’s estimate of her ability and potential clearly wasn’t misguided.

At Newmarket, many were surprised that True Love, who with the precocity of being a five-furlong Queen Mary Royal Ascot winner hardly had the profile of a Guineas filly, lasted as well up the hill at HQ as she did. Here, it was Precise with extravagant acceleration that quickly made up the ground and burst clear. Now they have two more Classic winning fillies to grace their pedigrees for the coming years.

I know one person who will now be quaking in his boots as he awaits news of which of the Oaks, French Oaks or the Coronation Stakes over a mile at Royal Ascot will be the next option for Precise. How about the Oaks followed by the Coronation? And Aidan still has the facile French 1,000 winner Diamond Necklace to sort out a programme for. Most people seem to think it will be back to France for the Prix de Diane (French Oaks). You can’t make it up, as a pal of mine was saying at Yarmouth the other night.

He (no, not my friend at Yarmouth) has a decent bet at 100/1 about the existing Oaks favourite Amelia Earhart, but he must be in trepidation whether the Cheshire Oaks winner will have to contend with Precise. It will not be unprecedented for a dyed in the wool mile and a half filly to be usurped at Epsom by a speedier animal, even though you must have stayed if you win an Oaks - or a Derby for that matter. After all, they thought City Of Troy wouldn’t stay, but class and acceleration were his weapons.

The generations of Galileo colts and fillies have finally gone while probably his most potent successor as a stallion of potential champions, Wootton Bassett, is also no longer with us. His progeny will be available for a year or two more.

Market moves are always instructive at this time of year and the flow of money that has brought Wootton Bassett’s son Constitution River to the head of the Derby betting at 5/2, replacing his fellow Chester winner (Vase) Benvenuto Cellini at the head of some books has to be significant. Oath (Henry Cecil) in 1999 and Kris Kin, Michael Stoute, four years later, were the most recent Dee Stakes winners that went on to Epsom glory.

Constitution River had a concrete boost to what had seemed a bloodless seven-length margin in the ten-furlong test when the third horse home, Golden Story, won Saturday’s Cocked Hat Stakes at Goodwood for Karl Burke.

I know the ground can be soft at Chester, but it was still no mean feat on quick going for Constitution River to record comfortably the fastest-ever time for the race since its reduction to the present distance in the 1970s. Considering the strength of either homebreds from Coolmore with its colossal stock of top-class mares, or such as Whisperview Trading and other close, long-standing associates, it has become an unequal task for stables with the odd top class horse to stave off their power.

It is something of a surprise, then, that Constitution River comes from a French nursery and M V Magnier was able to buy him at €400k. It’s not that they are merely clever with producing and improving stallions – they also know how to work the sales.

Aidan’s love for Chester – he’s won the Vase 12 times and the Dee Stakes 13, including eight of the last nine – is well documented, and I’ve enjoyed seeing quite a few of them at close hand apart from missing the last two or three.

The winners haven’t always gone on to be stars at the top end of racing, but the 2024 scorer Capulet did take part in quite a momentous race in Sha Tin yesterday. Romantic Warrior, the eight-year-old who vies with sprinter Ka Ying Rising as the favourite horse in Hong Kong even though his younger rival deservedly had the edge on ratings as the top international horse of 2025, won the 24^th race of his 31-run career.

It took him a long time to win the 1m4f turf event, James McDonald having to make up ground on two leaders turning for home. One of these, the former Capulet, now named Romantic Thor in Hong Kong, finished fourth as Romantic Warrior took his world leading career earnings beyond £28 million.

What Aidan didn’t win over the two days at the Curragh, sons Joseph and Donnacha filled in with three victories between them. Last month Donnacha took the four-year-old sprinter Comanche Brave on a speculative trip to Hong Kong to take on Ka Ying Rising. He finished fifth, eight lengths behind the home champion, a project which brought a handsome £80k reward for his first run of the year.

To show just how adaptable a stallion Wootton Bassett is, he is the sire of Comanche Brave, now the easy winner of the Group 3 Greenlands Stakes over six furlongs on Saturday. Good stallions get winners at all distances, subject to the quality of the mares. While it’s never a Precise rule of breeding, Coolmore seems always to have the bases covered. We’ll see just how well, when they collect the Derby and Oaks double. Mr Editor, I hope Precise stays away!

- TS

Monday Musings: A Laurel Crown

18 May 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

York was fun, thanks again Jim and Mary, writes Tony Stafford. I did offer something in return for their amazing hospitality. Believing the expansive knowledge and judgment of friend and Ray Tooth sidekick Steve Gilbey, I guided my hosts to Thompsons Famous (yes that’s what they call themselves) Fish and Chip restaurant around ten miles along the A64 Malton Road.

Steve was right. Next time you are anywhere near, see if I am. No doubt all the Malton trainers know about it. Then on Friday, forsaking the pleasures of day three on the Knavesmire, it was down to London (at a snail’s pace thanks to traffic on the A1) for Ray’s annual birthday bash in the Mandarin Kitchen in Queensway.

Every time we go there – I think we were ten- or eleven-handed – it seems to get better. Probably eighty per cent of the tables are peopled by Chinese: that’s always the give-away. But enough of the food editorial. What about the racing? I’ll get back to the Dante meeting later.

On Sunday morning I watched the rerun of the Preakness Stakes, second leg of the American Triple Crown. I would happily have made the mistake of assuming it was staged in its usual (since 1873) spot at Pimlico racecourse, Maryland, but no, it was at another once-famous track in that state, Laurel Park, Pimlico temporarily closed for a $250 million makeover.

In the far-off distant days before I wrote for a living – is it a living? – I was always entranced at the end of each year when the best riders and horses from Europe made their pioneering trip across the Atlantic. Their target, the Washington DC Invitational, run at Laurel Park initially over 1m4f from its inception in 1952.

By 1994, the glamour had long evaporated and the race as we knew it was halted for ten years. They tried 1m2f, a more American-friendly distance, after which fewer horses of note were enticed over. The latest incarnation coincided with Laurel’s being consigned to a lesser status in the US rollcall of racetracks.

I was oblivious to the first two runnings, but the ill-fated Manny Mercer won that initial 1952 instalment. Joe’s brother wasn’t far off the awful fatal fall before the start of a race at Ascot which halted his probably championship-winning career. Manny’s daughter, Caroline, an infant at the time, married Pat Eddery and they were together for many years until after Pat’s retirement.

The next winner was a jockey riding at the end of his career, Charlie Smirke. Charlie was famed for his comment after winning the 1952 Derby: “What did I Tulyar?”, surely a fitting epitaph. The year after his Derby triumph he rode future top stallion Worden, for French handler Georges Bridgeland. Smirke was 47 and rode on for six more years after a career that began as a 14-year-old in 1920.

Of all the “invaders”, or more accurately “invitees”, surely the greatest of them was 1968 Derby winner, the Vincent O’Brien-trained Sir Ivor, the first of three victors in the race for Lester Piggott and the most spectacular of his Epsom nine. That was in 1968, his Derby year, at the time when many Americans ridiculed Lester’s riding style. He followed that with Karabas (Bernard van Cutsem) the next year. In 1980 he rode Argument for Maurice Zilber, an Egyptian who trained with great success in France, notably for Nelson Bunker Hunt, whose empire crashed when he tried to control the world’s silver market.

Of the home team in that glorious era, names such as evergreen Kelso in 1964 and before that dual winner Bald Eagle stand out. Among the fillies to have won it, the French-trained trio Dahlia (Zilber, Bunker Hunt), April Run and All Along were at the top of their respective generations. All Along was one of Walter Swinburn’s earlier international winners in his meteoric career.

Saturday’s Preakness harked back to the 1960’s TV show – four series 1964 to 1968 – The Man From U.N.C.L.E. I know I’m being pedantic with the full stops, but the Editor will be impressed that I can be when necessary. [Indeed I am! – Ed.]

In that show, Robert Vaughn played Napoleon Solo, and British actor David McCallum the Russian Ilya Kuryakin, as the pair toiled, largely successfully, to put the world to rights. How we could do with them at this time of ridiculous instability domestically and internationally!

Napoleon Solo also happens to be the name of Saturday’s winner, by just over a length. He didn’t run in the Kentucky Derby, while the first two in that initial Triple Crown race sidestepped Laurel. So, no Triple Crown winner again this year.

While American Pharoah and Justify have achieved that feat in recent times, the nearest miss during the post-Affirmed 1968 (Steve Cauthen) period was the Thoroughbred Corporation pair of Prince Ahmed bin Salman.

In 2001, the Corporation’s Point Given flopped in the Derby, but rallied to win the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, surprising many that he would stay the tough 1m4f around the biggest dirt circuit in North America. The following year, the shrewdly bought Arkansas Derby winner War Emblem made it four Triple Crown races in a row for the green and white stripes.

War Emblem, a 20/1 shot, made all to win the Derby – I was in the entourage cheering him on at Churchill Downs! – and the Preakness. Sadly, he didn’t get the trip in New York, so no Triple Crown. Even more sadly, Prince Ahmed died later that summer.

We saw some nice performances at York, notably and fittingly from two three-year-olds sporting the Juddmonte colours on a track where the farm’s founder, the late Khalid Abdullah, enjoyed so much success.

On Wednesday in the Musidora, Legacy Link was a gritty winner, rallying under Colin Keane to stave off Ed Walker’s previously unbeaten filly Felicitas. The following day, the Dante was a much more clear-cut win for Item from a couple of Coolmore/O’Brien “sighters” for the Andrew Balding/Oisin Murphy combination.

Both the filly and colt are by Frankel, Juddmonte’s own homebred stallion and the world’s best horse of all time, most people believe. Each is a 5/1 chance to intrude on what might otherwise be a Ballydoyle Epsom hegemony. Benvenuto Cellini remains a firm 5/2 shot to make it 12 Derby successes for Aidan after his fluent performance at Chester.

To say Brian Meehan has made a slow start to the season is an understatement, but the Manton-based handler struck in the Listed Childwickbury Fillies’ Listed Trial at Newbury, his Esna comfortably holding off Sacred Ground, thus turning around form from the Pretty Polly Stakes at Newmarket two weeks earlier.

Sam Sangster signed the ticket on the daughter of first-season sire Starman at 50k. While this half-sister to five winners might on that basis be an unlikely candidate for a 1m4f Classic, her siblings generally take more after their maternal grandsire, the peerless Galileo, sire of Frankel. In any, she's reportedly aiming at the Prix de Diane.

Meehan was also involved in the story of an owner who was introduced to me by a mutual friend. Lew Day, who had been an owner with Eric Wheeler for many years, was intending to upgrade his racing experience. Around Royal Ascot time in 2013, we met and he said he would like to buy a nice two-year-old. Anything any good, I reasoned privately, would be unbuyable at that stage, but I had seen a possible candidate in my regular Thursday jaunts to gallops morning at Manton where Ray Tooth had a few horses in training.

By this time Brian had still not sold one youngster, and I asked if it was for sale, as he had impressed me in his work. He was, and I suggested him to Lew. He balked at the price, but on St Leger Day, while I was up with a few friends representing Raymond as his Great Hall ran (unplaced) in the St Leger, said Spark Plug was making his debut at Bath.

I was busy in the pre-parade ring - I remember chatting to John Magnier who won the race with Aidan’s Leading Light. I hadn’t noticed my pals, brothers Kevin and Steve Howard, had sloped off without telling me and backed him – and he won at 12/1! That’s what friends are for it appears.

Lew got straight on the phone to Brian on the Monday and secured the colt, “at a higher price”, says Lew. Still, six wins, 11 places and a stonking victory as a five-year-old in the Cambridgeshire wasn’t a bad return on that investment.

Then Sam bought a nice youngster for 35k and the future Raheen House (named for Lew’s hotel in Ireland – no he’s a Londoner, not Irish) became a Group 3 winner for Brian, before a late switch to William Haggas. That involved the sale of a half-share to Australian interests. “I’d kept a half and there might have been 100 owners sharing the other bit,” recalls Lew. “He did win once over there, but I don’t think he took to racing in Australia. He’s now enjoying his retirement with a nice lady in Queensland”.

We lost contact probably five years ago and then on Friday morning, I noticed his name as the owner of a filly called Rossa Raheen, running in a handicap at Newbury. I speak regularly to Ollie Sangster, also based at Manton, who trains her and he reckoned she had an each-way chance, second time out for him.

I checked to see if I still had Lew’s number. I did and called. He was hopeful, so I napped Rossa Raheen that day and she flew home after a troubled run to finish a neck second – at 22/1! We won’t get anything like that next time I’m afraid, Lew, but it won’t get beat either.

In the intervening period, Lew has gone more seriously into breeding, concentrating at the upper end with such stallions as Kingman and Sea The Stars on one or other side of his three mares’ pedigrees. His covering stallions for the three this year are Baaeed (two) and St Mark’s Basilica, already responsible for one Classic winner from his first crop. Now with a total of ten horses, he retains all the enthusiasm he had when we first met, and I aim to keep in touch. You can’t forget your mates, even if at my age you forget who they are!

Monday Musings: Ryan’s Choice

11 May 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

And now the thinking starts, writes Tony Stafford. Ryan Moore has won two of the last nine editions of the Derby at Epsom for the Aidan O’Brien/Coolmore juggernaut, on Auguste Rodin in 2023 and City Of Troy the following year.

O’Brien has won six of the last nine. That means Ryan missed out on Wings Of Eagles (Padraig Beggy) in 2017; Anthony Van Dyck (Seamus Heffernan), two years later; Serpentine in a deserted Epsom in Covid year 2020 (Emmet McNamara) and Lambourn (Wayne Lordan) last year.

If you think one in three is bad luck, imagine Ryan’s conundrum this time around. Ballydoyle has the first five in the betting (or did before Pierre Bonnard’s defeat at Leopardstown yesterday) as O’Brien aims to make it 12 wins in the race, extending his own record. As previous history shows, he can win with any of them.

Victory for the stable will inevitably extend Michael Tabor and Sue Magnier’s tally to an eye-boggling 13 - Pour Moi won it for them from the Andre Fabre yard in 2011. Long-time associate Derrick Smith came on board after the initial two victories for the stable, first for legendary stallion Galileo (2001), and High Chaparral the following year.

The two winners that Ryan did ride in that period (he also has two more earlier) both have their first foals on the ground this year, so there’s a chance some might be seen at the foal sales in the autumn. It’s likely though that many will be retained for racing. Those that do come on the market will be almost as eagerly sought as the initial progeny of Frankel following his unblemished racing career which gave such credit to Galileo, his sire.

Of the other quartet, Wings Of Eagles was a 40/1 shot when winning his Derby and then broke down within sight of the winning post at The Curragh, never to race again. He’s standing for €4k at one of Coolmore’s NH stud farms and is already getting some nice jumpers to his name.

Anthony Van Dyck was fatally injured during the running of the 2020 Melbourne Cup, won by Aidan O’Brien’s son Joseph with Australian-owned seven-year-old Twilight Payment.

Serpentine’s story deserves re-telling. In the Derby he was one of six O’Brien runners, the most fancied being Moore’s mount, Mogul. He was never to get into the race, like many others, while McNamara immediately sent Serpentine to the lead. He was a dozen lengths clear of the field at the three-furlong pole and held on to win unchallenged by five lengths with a strong tailwind blowing him home.

McNamara, who didn’t record a single race ride in his native Ireland that year, was immediately replaced on the horse, Christophe Soumillon taking over as Mogul and Moore gained their revenge in the Grand Prix de Paris that September. Mogul, a 3.4 million guinea yearling, won two more big races later that year. Coolmore originally stood him as a NH stallion. Now, along with fellow former O’Brien trainee Capri, he remains in Coolmore ownership, both horses having relocated to Wood Hall Stud in Shropshire, fee £2,500.

Serpentine, having collected the Derby on only his fourth race following a wide margin maiden victory at the third time of asking, never approached those heights in his career for Aidan, even trying 2m4f for the Gold Cup at Ascot the following season.

In all, Serpentine, who was gelded and then sent to Australia, has now raced 31 times and managed only one more success – over 1m2f. His latest effort on New Year’s Day 2026 was in a Group 2 handicap in which he finished 14^th of 15! I doubt we’ll see much more of the nine-year-old, but in Australia anything goes.

Lambourn might have been demonstrating something of a Serpentine manoeuvre last year when making all while Ryan on favourite Delacroix got stuck in traffic some way behind and finished only ninth. That Delacroix could return to the track as soon as the Coral-Eclipse a month later and beat Ombudsman revealed his true merit. He stands at €40k at Coolmore.

Lambourn’s successful return in the ten-furlong Huxley Stakes at Chester last week confirmed him as more than just a one-pacer. It took plenty of pluck to hold off Bay City Roller but whether he’ll beat stablemate Jan Bruegel, not to mention Calandagan, in the £1 million Coolmore Coronation Cup at Epsom next month is another matter.

Until Isaac Newton showed his limitations in the Lingfield Derby Trial, won by William Haggas’s Maltese Cross narrowly from Ralph Beckett’s Bay Of Brilliance, O’Brien had mopped up all the colts’ – and for that matter fillies’ – Epsom trials.

As a result we have Benvenuto Cellini as 5/2 favourite after sluicing home in the Chester Vase; Constitution River next at 5/1 after winning a no-contest Dee Stakes following a long layoff; while Christmas Day, due to run in the Dante on Thursday at York, is a 12/1 shot along with Futurity winner Hawk Mountain, who reappeared with a smooth win at Longchamp in the Prix de Guiche a week yesterday.

In between we had Pierre Bonnard, smart last year but behind Christmas Day when they both returned to action last month. His effort in the five-runner trial at Leopardstown yesterday when beaten in a tight finish by son Joseph’s James J Braddock would seem to have diminished this one-time strong candidate’s chance on June 6.

And it doesn’t necessarily end there. After Aidan’s big five, there were another 11 still in the Betfred-sponsored Classic at the latest stage, from 37 entered all told. There’s still time for a Wings Of Eagles to emerge, although he did win the Dee Stakes, or a Serpentine to come from nowhere.

It won’t be an easy choice for Ryan – let’s hope the best jockey of his time gets it right. He certainly has come back from last year’s long spell on the sidelines with renewed vigour and possibly his best-ever standard, and that’s saying a lot!

Among the fillies, Amelia Earhart (5/2) supplanted the Gosdens’ I’m The One (5/1) as Oaks favourite with a comfortable success over that rival in the Cheshire Oaks, and it’s big odds bar the pair with the exception of Diamond Necklace, more likely heading back to Paris for the Prix de Diane. That Chester race felt beforehand like a re-match between the two big Oaks contending stables on a par with when Enable (John Gosden) easily beat O’Brien’s very smart filly Alluringly in the Vase before trouncing Rhododendron, Auguste Rodin’s mother, by five lengths at Epsom on her way to glory.

Over at Longchamp yesterday, under awful weather conditions and rapidly deteriorating going, the O’Brien team were expecting more success in the two French mile Classics. In the Poulains, for colts, late switch Puerto Rico, who was initially regarded as Coolmore’s 2,000 Guineas choice instead leaving that race to its runner-up Gstaad, started the 11/10 favourite. Disappointingly, he could finish only fourth behind the Francis-Henri Graffard, Mickael Barzalona, Aga Khan Studs horse Rayif.

The winner, drawn ideally on the inside, raced just behind the sole UK runner, Karl Burke’s Hankelow, then quickened off the last slight bend and won smoothly from a challenging pack. They were led home by the Andre Fabre/Godolphin runner Komorebi and William Buick, who finished strongly to pip Hankelow for second. Puerto Rico was a one-paced fourth and stablemate Dorset sixth.

In the fillies race, the Pouliches, O’Brien had the favourite in Diamond Necklace. Unbeaten in three starts at two, including in the Marcel Boussac on Arc Day, she and Ryan followed the Barzalona route up the inside and strode away majestically for an extremely easy success.

A filly from the first crop of the very smart St Mark’s Basilica, Diamond Necklace has the look of a potential champion. She was not inconvenienced by the soft ground and already it’s shaping up as a battle between her and 1,000 Guineas winner True Love, not to mention Precise, as to which is the best and where they might all be going next time out.

This was surprisingly only a second win for O’Brien in the race after Rose Gypsy as long ago as 2001, when she was a contemporary of Galileo. A lot of water has flown under Coolmore’s bridge since then.

Just one oddity from Saturday’s racing. When William Knight’s homebred five-year-old mare Royal Velvet made a successful step up to Pattern racing with a smooth success in the Group 3 Chartwell Stakes at Lingfield, that was her ninth win from only 21 starts. Of her 12 defeats, none has been in second place and she has recorded only one third placing.

That shows as she has gone from a rating of 69 to 99, when a race gets serious there is usually only one winner. Congratulations to Suzie Hartley, her owner, recently the subject of open-heart surgery but there to see her pride and joy give her a recuperative boost. It won’t be the last time either. Ascot here they come!

- TS

Monday Musings: Bright Lights in Newmarket

4 May 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Irritatingly, I couldn’t make it to the two big races over the weekend, but watching from home didn’t diminish the experience of seeing three bright lights dominate the first Classic of the European season, writes Tony Stafford. Bow Echo, his young trainer George Boughey and barely-out-of-his-teens rider Billy Loughnane, treated Newmarket to its finest hour since Frankel slaughtered his opposition back in the 2000 Guineas of 2011.

Both Boughey and Loughnane have sprinted through the normal gestation period in their respective careers. Boughey went from a handful of horses and two wins in 2019, having left his role as assistant to Hugo Palmer in Newmarket, to the first of four successive centuries in 2022.

Loughnane’s rise has been even more meteoric. The son of trainer Mark had his first rides in 2022 on the all-weather yet by the end of that winter had 41 successes, winning the apprentices’ AW season award just beyond his 17^th birthday.

Comparisons with Lester Piggott are inevitable, but Lester was able to start riding at age 12 whereas the earliest allowed nowadays is 16. At 20, Loughnane has what will prove the first of many Classic wins, I’m sure, and he will be a major threat to Oisin Murphy’s hold on the jockeys’ championship starting now.

Last year Loughnane rode 223 winners and was on 65 for this year after Saturday’s exploits. Of course, the jockeys’ championship, oddly, only includes racing between mid-April and October, but it isn’t far-fetched to suggest he might have a little more hunger than Murphy. The champion will need to keep his own well-publicised demons at bay in face of what will be the most serious human challenge yet to his pre-eminence.

Comparisons with horses of previous generations are often meaningless, but Bow Echo, who won by almost three lengths from Coolmore’s hastily re-entered Gstaad after a costly glitch from the Ballydoyle office computer, looks very much in the Frankel range of ability on their comparable Guineas runs.

Tom Queally allowed Frankel to run his rivals into submission a long way from home, winning by ten lengths on the way to a blemish-free lifetime tally of 14 from 14. Bow Echo is thus ten away from that after this exceptional performance. Had Gstaad not been included as the sole Aidan O’Brien runner, the margin theoretically could have been ten lengths, thus firmly in the Frankel range.

Had Bow Echo not been in the field or not lived fully up to Boughey’s expectations – a friend told me in the week that the trainer thought him a certainty – Gstaad would have won by eight, just the job to keep the Coolmore machine in full flow. Their PR department would have been Frankelising the performance.

Saturday’s winner, along with the third home, Distant Storm, the eventual joint-favourite with the runner-up, are both sons of the 2014 2000 Guineas winner Night Of Thunder. His Guineas success was notable in that he came right across the track in the closing stages yet still had enough under Kieren Fallon to catch market leaders Kingman and Australia as a 40/1 chance for Richard Hannon.

Night Of Thunder was hardly over-trumpeted in his first season as a stallion at Darley’s Kildangan Stud when his opening fee was €30k. Success breeds excess in terms of stud fees though and he is up to €200k as a result of his being champion stallion in the UK and Ireland last year.

In the 14-horse field on Saturday, he had four representatives – the others being Billecart in 12^th and Needle Match in 13^th. Three more 2000 Guineas winners were also represented. Apart from Frankel, they were Sea The Stars (2009), who went on to win the Derby and the Arc, and Saxon Warrior (2018).

The latter’s son Padraig Dawn is trained by 24-year-old Charlie Pike, who is in his first season with a licence. That horse gave him his first and, so far, sole winner at Southwell in February from 35 starters, although in finishing eighth only three lengths behind the third horse, he deserves a big mention.

So too, Coolmore-based and raced Saxon Warrior, result of a trip to Japan for his smart mother Maybe to be mated with Deep Impact. He won the Classic eight years ago and is still on Coolmore’s books but very much at the basement end. His 2026 fee is only €10k, as against £350k for Frankel and €300k for Sea The Stars. Two Coolmore stallions were doubly represented with Starspangledbanner and St Mark’s Basilica, so eight of the 14 were sired by only three stallions.

In yesterday’s 1,000 Guineas, looking from far away on the screen, as the fillies went into the stalls, you had to be impressed with how True Love looked: big, strong and also well found in the market. There had been doubts about whether Ryan Moore’s mount Precise would get to the race but as she shortened to 7/4 favouritism those had seemingly been dispelled.

Meanwhile, True Love, winner of the Cheveley Park last year and a returning winner this spring, had the time-honoured Classic profile and she won in fine style, making it an eighth 1000 for Aidan O’Brien, this time with Wayne Lordan in the saddle. She might not be an exact equivalent of Bow Echo, but she looks the type to progress through the year.

Most of the sires represented on Saturday are either at Coolmore or under Godolphin/Darley management. That is vastly at odds with the 18-strong line-up from Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby, first leg of the US Triple Crown, staged late on Saturday evening.

Only one stallion had more than a single runner and that was champion sire Into Mischief, whose fee is $250k. But only one stallion represented in the field had won the Kentucky Derby, the 2016 hero Nyquist, and as the line-up says, competitors in the Run For The Roses come from all directions.

Only Gun Runner of the other 16, at $250k matches Into Mischief’s covering fee, while the winner of the race Golden Tempo, was sired by Curlin, now a 22-year-old, most remembered for winning the 2008 Dubai World Cup. His fee is $225k.

Golden Tempo came from 'downtown', as they say, his jockey Jose Ortiz 18 lengths off the lead after half a mile, and deploying similarly exaggerated waiting tactics to brother Irad, on Renegade, who ran on for a close second. And this was a first Kentucky Derby win by a female trainer, Cherie DeVaux adding to her growing haul of records.

Gun Runner had a better day on Friday when he supplied the one-two with Always A Runner (Chad Brown) and Meaning (Michael McCarthy) as well as two of the backmarkers in a 13-strong field for the Kentucky Oaks. Brown was further cementing his reputation as a supreme trainer of fillies, on dirt as in the Oaks, but also on turf.

I would have made this my lead today had it not been for the excellence of Saturday’s big race winner and to a slightly lesser extent the runner-up. I remember when Sea The Stars was going along, Aidan used to have a pop at him with different horses trying to find chinks in his impregnable armour without ever managing to do so. The rest of the season among the milers will be fascinating.

What wasn’t fascinating was the treatment meted out to the three-year-old King’s Courtier, trained by Julia and Shelley Birkett at Exning, near Newmarket.

Three, I must say, talentless runs at two brought the son of Bated Breath an initial mark of 30. In the past, horses so far out of the handicap were allowed to run, but off what is the nominally bottom-weighted mark of 45. Now, the Rules state you cannot run and must find a maiden to try to improve the rating.

So, four months after his feeble 12^th of 13 at Chelmsford, he was loaded into the horsebox for the 250-mile round trip to Wolverhampton. Mindful to get the best possible placing, unlike a few less in need of such an urgent situation, the three-year-old started 66/1 and got within eight lengths of the winner.

The misfortune was that the horse immediately ahead of him was rated 53, questionable in that only once in three had he run anything remotely worth that mark.

Result, the BHA handicapper raised him 27lb – that’s near enough two stone for finishing fourth in a modest at best race.

Now Julia, an experienced and well-respected trainer since 2000, who joined forces with daughter Shelley last year, was in a right pickle. Recently, the rule which enabled horses 1lb and 2lb above the ceiling mark in handicaps to run, was taken away in Class 5 and Class 6. That meant King’s Courtier could not run in a 0-55 and would have to go to 0-60. “There aren’t any for him,” says Julia, so she had to go up to 0-65 for his first handicap run. “There’s no way he’s that class,” she lamented.

So, it was a shorter road and a bit easier on the diesel, trip last Thursday that was undertaken for King’s Courtier for a seven-runner race at Yarmouth. Julia/Shelley’s horse started 50/1 and finished 18 lengths behind the penultimate runner in the race. We all know that handicappers do not like dropping horses – except for certain top trainers it sometimes seems! – so Julia is anxiously waiting on tomorrow’s revised mark.

Unless they drop him to 45 it will be a travesty of justice, but they won’t. Indeed, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Civil Service types that seem to fill the job nowadays, say: “He couldn’t have run anything like to form, so let’s leave him where he is.”

Make no mistake this is a massive scandal, and I would suggest to Dominic Gardner-Hill (if he’s still the man?) that he has a serious look at the reasoning whereby life has been made so difficult for an honest, hard-working stable and the man who has been paying the bills for the past 20 months! Not no mention the ever-spiralling administration charges.

- TS

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