Monday Musings | geegeez.co.uk

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

Monday Musings: Dan and dusted

27 April 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Careful. By the time you read next week’s words here the 2026/27 jumps season will already be four days old, we’ll be 40 per cent through the 2026 UK Classics, and only seven weeks short of the longest day of the year, writes Tony Stafford.

And what of the 2025/26 season? Well, that was pretty much Dan and dusted before Cheltenham, and Mr Skelton duly got over the £5million mark with his Sandown exploits – which were not without their difficulties.

Now he wants to beat Martin Pipe’s record number of 243 winners in a single season, while second-time champion jockey Sean Bowen reckons 300 wins will be within his reach – he finished off with 241, so 48 behind A P McCoy’s best of 289 in the 2001/02 campaign.

But let’s forget the jumping for a while – the boys will have had almost a full week off, bar a single Friday meeting at Warwick’s temporary hosting of Cheltenham’s hunter chase fixture. Last week’s meeting there, also replacing unfit Cheltenham, was pretty turgid apart from the money.

No, I’m not planning to relive my 1992 2000 Guineas Day when I waited until Lester returned to unsaddle on Rodrigo De Triano for Robert Sangster and trainer Peter Chapple-Hyam before setting off to keep an appointment with a potential client 266 miles away at Hexham racecourse. That fixture is joined by Uttoxeter, so the counting starts again then.

Meanwhile we have the small matter of five days at Punchestown starting tomorrow. As with Dan Skelton for the past two years – largely abandoned this time round as he had no chance of catching the new champion – Willie Mullins has now a target on the back of Gordon Elliott, something we’ve seen more than once in the past.

Elliott goes into Punchestown on €4,710,170, €160k ahead of his nemesis. He’s having a proper go, starting with 15 runners including his Aintree heroine Brighterdaysahead tomorrow, and a possible 61 in the following four days.

Mullins kicks off with 22 tomorrow and has at least 33 on each of the following days, with a preponderance as ever in the non-handicaps and championship events. It’s more than an uphill struggle for Elliott, even though he has had 323 individual horses to call on this season against Mullins’ modest team of just 290!

When talking numbers, you cannot get away from those two superstars from Hong Kong, Ka Ying Rising and Romantic Warrior. Both turned out at Sha Tin’s big day yesterday and thrilled their legion of followers in their respective races. I doubt there’s ever been a plus £1 million to the winner prize with eight runners, contested (and obviously won) by a horse starting at 100/1 on.

That was the price of Ka Ying Rising as he made it 20 wins in a row with only two narrow second places the blemishes on the six-year-old’s card. There was never a moment’s doubt that he would duly outclass the opposition in the Chairman’s Sprint Cup. How connections must wish that the year-younger Wunderbar hadn’t turned up for his second and third starts.

Each time it went to a close-run thing, first by a nose and then a short head. The two horses’ fortunes have veered apart since then, Ka Ying Rising cantering to a four and a bit length win from second-favourite Satano Reve (89/1!), a winner of a Group 1 sprint last time out at Chukyo racecourse, Japan. Wunderbar’s last run was in a handicap this year off a mark of 100. He was ridden by Richard Kingscote and finished eighth of twelve. Ka Ying Rising is rated 128.

Donnacha O’Brien’s useful Comanche Brave was fifth yesterday under Oisin Murphy, having started at 350/1. Connections copped a handy £80k against the £1.281 million collected by the Zac Purton-ridden winner. He had started at 1/20 for each of his previous eight wins around Sha Tin, a sequence only interrupted by a smooth success at Randwick racecourse in Sydney last year where he was an even-money shot.

I doubt many Hong Kong racegoers with winning tickets will have bothered cashing them in, basically to get their money back. As when Deep Impact came over to Longchamp from Japan, the legion of his supporters that forced his price down on the Pari-mutuel on that Arc would not have cashed them either.

Even if they had backed him for a place – he finished third over the line to Rail Link and Pride, ahead of Hurricane Run – they will have been found a spot on many a Tokyo trophy cabinet. I had forgotten – it was 20 years ago after all – that Deep Impact was subsequently disqualified for having a banned substance in his post-race test. That doesn’t alter the fact that he was one of the greatest in Japan and sired the 2023 Derby winner for Coolmore in Auguste Rodin from the mating with their top filly Rhododendron.

Hong Kong’s other great equine hero, the eight-year-old Romantic Warrior, did the business once more in the QE II Cup, his fourth win in the race, starting as a four-year-old in 2022. James McDonald’s mount missed out last year, I recall injured following his narrow defeat at Meydan the previous month, but has returned as good as ever, making his tally 22 wins from 29 starts.

His prizemoney tally now tops £25 million and he is ahead of Forever Young after that Japanese champion’s failure to secure as expected the Dubai World Cup at Meydan last month. The difference between second and first that day was more than £3 million, but you get the feeling that Romantic Warrior can only go on for so long and it’s merely a matter of time.

That said, he was the 30/100 favourite and had to beat three smart overseas performers to send the locals home happy that another of their heroes had seen off the visiting opposition. He had a length to spare over runner-up Masquerade Ball, last seen running the world’s highest-rated horse Calandagan close at Meydan; third was Sosie, in the same place as when he was behind Daryz in the Arc last October.

Next came another eight-year-old, Karl Burke’s Royal Champion, a close up fourth under Oisin adding £171k to his Middle East earnings at Bahrain and Riyadh at the beginning of the year. Burke is becoming adept at identifying winning targets overseas for his charges and that can only develop further as the returns continue to accumulate for his owners.

Talking of owners, so many older horses, some entire and more often geldings, are benefiting from staying in training for longer, especially at middle distances and above. While there are always plenty of new stallions every year, the fashion is for the precocious sprinting type that can get its progeny on the track early and maybe even have a shot at Royal Ascot.

Tony O’Callaghan, wife Anne and son Roger have been ultra-successful in that regard, and their Tally-Ho Stud had another day in the sun when a colt by their stallion Mehmas sold for £880,000 at the Doncaster breeze-up sale last week.

Mehmas never ran beyond age two but did plenty in those eight runs for Richard Hannon and Al Shaqab, winning four times including the Group 2 July Stakes, beating Blue Point. The only time Hannon stretched him beyond six furlongs he was second to Churchill in the National Stakes over seven at the Curragh.

The O’Callaghans bought him and he began his stud career with a fee of £12,500 at Tally-Ho. By the time the first runners appeared on the track it was down to £7,500 but his progeny soon showed speed, precocity and class and he was set. Now his fee is €70k.

Like Romantic Warrior, Mehmas is a son of Acclamation, and it isn’t hard to estimate that with say 150 mares visiting him each year at that fee, he will be rapidly approaching the sort of figures that his paternal relative has amassed on the track. That has been the Coolmore method for decades and one that other top stud operations like Godolphin, Shadwell, Juddmonte, and no doubt in their long-term planning, Amo Racing also aspire to.

One of Mehmas’s classiest sons, Minzaal, is now finding his feet as a stallion and my friend Maurice Manasseh was shrewd and maybe lucky enough to buy a lovely colt by him at Doncaster for £60k last week. Minzaal won the Gimcrack at two and the Haydock Sprint Cup on his final career start as a four-year-old.

Bred by Shadwell, from a Juddmonte family, I’m sure this very stylish-looking colt will give Maurice plenty of fun with the Crisfords.

If you feel I’ve been procrastinating a bit when talking about the Guineas this weekend, you may well be right. I’ve not missed either the 2000 or the 1000 since 2002 (and for at least another 25 years before that) but I’m ashamed to say I won’t be at Newmarket on either day owing to unforeseen domestic duties.

The last absence happened when I was off to Louisville for my one and only visit to the Kentucky Derby, in the entourage of Prince Ahmed Salman’s Thoroughbred Corporation. I watched mesmerised as the green and white stripes on War Emblem won the race in all-the-way fashion under Victor Espinoza for the Bob Baffert stable. We were in Paris by late that evening and saw the 1000 from there the following day at the George V Hotel.

Anyway, what’s going to win this time? With so little encouragement coming from the original ante-post fancies and with Bow Echo looking very short, I’ll take a chance with Roger Varian’s Avicenna, each-way at 16’s for the 2000 on Saturday.

As to the 1000, Aidan O’Brien could hardly have been more complimentary as Precise made her way through and out of the grades last year. I can picture Ryan Moore, convalescing from injury and denied a ride on any of her four wins, standing next to the paddock on his own admiring her in the middle distance as she went round before the Fillies’ Mile last September. He won’t relinquish that mount once he gets on her, so Christophe Soumillon, you can merely watch as she wins on Sunday.

- TS

Monday Musings: An Expensive Blunder

20 April 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

One of the most upwardly mobile jump trainers in the country is undoubtedly Jamie Snowden, writes Tony Stafford. Over the 17 seasons since he first took out his licence in Lambourn, Snowden has consistently improved both number of wins and prizemoney, and this term is the first time he’s exceeded £1 million in earnings.

The 84 wins have come at a strike rate of 25 per cent, and while it’s churlish to say a horse has been unlucky to lose when a bad mistake is the reason for it, his Git Maker’s second in Saturday’s Coral Scottish Grand National was probably undeserved.

True, the winner Kap Vert, a six-year-old trained by the duo of Philip Hobbs and Johnson White was an entirely deserving recipient of the £112k first prize on only his fifth start in a chase. That said, Git Maker’s performance for all bar one monstrous error at the 21^st of the 27 fences made things much more comfortable for the winning yard’s local ownership partnership of If The Kap Fits.

In his 13 chases before Saturday, Git Maker had been runner-up to the following year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Inothewayurthinkin in the 2024 Kim Muir for amateurs at Cheltenham, and has places to his name in the 2024 Scottish and this year’s Midlands Nationals.

In those now 14 races Snowden’s ten-year-old has never fallen with only a single pulled up after 14 fences on one occasion and once completed the only eight fences remaining when another nine were lost to a low sun.

By my reckoning, he has safely negotiated 268 fences in around 48 miles of racing. So why then did he make the catastrophic error at the 21^st fence on Saturday? Having raced among the last three for the first half of the race, Jonny Burke moved him up around the outside easily into third place down the back for the last time.

It seemed a matter of time before he contested the lead, but he stumbled badly on landing, losing impetus to the extent that he was back in ninth or tenth by the following fence. Then another ordinary leap two fences further on would, we assumed, have finished it for him.

But no, this valiant stayer battled back again, so that he shared second going to the last. Slower away from the fence than both the winner and the 4/1 favourite, Joseph O’Brien’s Kim Roque, he stayed on determinedly to the line and was a nose ahead of the third, that making the difference of £21k for connections, so not a total disaster.

As a side note on disaster, Kim Roque raced here in the Ronnie Bartlett silks, and that same owner sold the winner last spring. How’s your luck?

I haven’t spoken to Jamie, but I was wondering who made the decision whereby stable jockey Gavin Sheehan switched off the Ayr ride to go instead to partner four Snowden runners at Bangor – none of which won – and neither did Gavin’s two outside rides.

Sheehan had ridden Git Maker in ten of those previous 13 runs over fences and two of those he missed came in the Kim Muir where the top amateur Will Biddick took the ride. For my money, Sheehan excels in judging pace in long-distance chases on a par I believe with Harry Skelton and the champion Sean Bowen. Not that Burke did anything wrong, far from it – did he not after all survive that terrible blunder and retain the partnership?

Dan Skelton meanwhile went on his merry way with a Sunday double at Plumpton worth £40k bringing him to within just 126 grand of making the £5 million for the season. There was a brilliant interview with him by the Racing Post’s Lee Mottershead yesterday, revealing much about the 41-year-old’s planning and some of his admitted weaknesses as he approaches the massive achievement coupled with a first trainers’ title.

On an earthlier level, I was thrilled that Jack Quinlan has set a new personal best this season – one for each of his 33 years. Jack has resolutely stayed close to his Newmarket roots and while the Amy Murphy connection that brought him so much success with Kalashnikov earlier his career has ended with Amy’s moving full-time to France, a former Newmarket trainer, Neil King, has provided him several highlights.

Biggest of those was the Aintree Grade 1 win of Storming George this month. Jack, as you would expect, was well aware of the winners statistic but was surprised when I congratulated him for passing half a million in stakes. “I had no idea,” he said. A bit of a mini-Skelton really. Jack had never previously got to £400K, just as Dan had never until this season got to £4 million and goes straight to the £5m.

After seeing what happened at Newmarket and Newbury last week, I’m not sure the picture for the first two English Classics at Newmarket next month is any clearer. It seems that the best way of enhancing one’s horses’ chances was to keep them away from the trials. So, George Boughey’s unbeaten Bow Echo, a son of Night Of Thunder has hardened his position as others fell by the wayside.

It must have been the result of some exceptional work on the gallops for the 115-rated colt to be as short as 11/4 while Zavateri, second in Saturday’s Greenham at Newbury and rated 118 on last year’s Dewhurst fourth behind Gewan, is at 25/1 after a satisfactory second to Alparslan. Gewan was fatally injured in a gallop a couple of weeks ago, sadly, while Coolmore’s Dewhurst runner-up Gstaad will probably go straight to Newmarket after missing the trials.

The two best US dirt horses from the 2025 Classic generation were back in action after a break in the Oaklawn Handicap, a Grade 2 race at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas on Saturday evening. Godolphin’s Sovereignty, trained by Bill Mott, was seen off by the seven-year-old White Abarrio, who brought his career tally to ten wins from 25 starts and £6.7 million in prizes. All six runners in the race were still entire horses, three of them four-year-olds, two aged five and the winner two years their senior.

Last year Sovereignty won the Kentucky Derby from Journalism, and they again finished in that order in the third leg of the Triple Crown, run over the reduced trip of 10 furlongs at Saratoga while Belmont Park was closed for rebuilding.

Sovereignty did not run in the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, which left the way clear for Journalism to step up. American dirt fans are licking their lips in anticipation of another year’s competition from two great horses.

- TS

Monday Musings: BBC Shows National Apathy

13 April 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Have you ever needed to get somewhere but have found yourself stuck in traffic, writes Tony Stafford. Of course you have. At £1.90 a litre for diesel (if you’re lucky) you would imagine there would be fewer than usual cars out on the North Circular Road in London, early on a Saturday April afternoon, but no.

I needed to get home to watch the Grand National having undertaken an errand but realised it unlikely unless I wanted to collect a guaranteed speeding ticket. Brainwave! Didn’t BBC Radio Five Live cover every race of the Cheltenham Festival’s four days uninterrupted last month, with Gina Brice at the helm? Why wouldn’t they give some attention to the event their admirable chief commentator (and West Ham United fan) John Hunt rightly described as the “most famous race in the world”?

We had the vital matter beforehand of full commentary of Brentford versus Everton from 3pm but with the big race starting an hour later, Steve Crossman, hosting the day’s coverage from Aintree, assured racing fans that there would be the best build-up to the race, with the football switching to Radio Five Sports Extra while we were at Aintree.

Needless to say, there were five additional minutes to the first half at Brentford, so it wasn’t until 3.50 and 35 seconds that the half-time whistle blew.

Once more, this time by commentator Ian Dennis, we were promised all the build-up was on its way. If you want to stay with the football, retune to Sports Extra, otherwise here it’s all about the 178^th Grand National.

Crossman by now had the microphone, announcing there’s ten minutes to go and that he had just “seen I Am Maximus in the golden dark brown colours” (sic). Then without a second breath he added, “half times in the football, Burnley/Brighton” and we got a brief report on that so important match.

Next Steve was “in the parade ring with the suits, dresses – all the colours of the rainbow. On the course, John Hunt”. “Can Willie Mullins win it again and make it three in a row to equal Vincent O’Brien’s feat of 70 years ago?”

John spotted Panic Attack and Gerri Colombe, one of five runners for Gordon Elliott, and noted JP McManus and his six runners.

Steve jumped in, “Half-time Oxford 1-0, St Mirren…, Southampton 0 Derby 1. Other half-times <without reports>”.

Seamlessly, he switched back to Aintree and Davy Russell, twice the winner on Tiger Roll. “When you go out to ride in the Grand National what do you feel?”

Davy says, “You have to keep calm, take your routine, think about which horses you want to be around, and those you don’t want to be near <in the race>.

Again Steve showed his nimbleness. “Half-time, Hearts… Could the door be creaking open for Celtic? The reporter said, “Celtic are dominating the ball…”

Steve again: “Other scores, League 2 Newport/ Harrogate. That reporter informed Grand National fans hanging on every word that Newport had achieved the great escape in avoiding relegation from the Football League nine years ago and now that fate seems destined for basement club Harrogate.

Back to John. “The last chance for punters to have a bet.” Over to Rob Nothman who has been at the BBC since the time they used to broadcast live sport on TV. “Betting movements. I Am Maximus is favourite at 13/2, Jagwar second favourite at 15/2 ahead of Panic Attack at 8/1.”

Time marches on, but it stands still if you want football info. Live scores… but even as the last dregs of the halftimes around the country were dribbled out, the sound of bugles could be heard in the background.

Steve again. “This sound tells us that it’s nearly time, the buglers of the King’s Guard in their red tunics and black caps. Davy is still with us.”

Davy: “So many bright colours, bays, greys, all the jockeys’ colours. Gerri Colombe is a good horse, Oscars Brother, trained by Connor King and ridden by his brother, Daniel. “

Steve: “The jockeys climb on board … and walk past Blackmore’s Bar named after Rachael, the first woman to ride the winner of the race. Then Red Rum’s Bar. Toby McCain-Mitchell, grandson of three-time winner Red Rum’s trainer Ginger McCain has the ride on Top Of The Bill.”

Back to John. “They are cantering down right in front of us” and then John introduces his three co-commentators, in order Darren Owen, Gary O’Brien and Gina Brice, the first woman, they say, to commentate on the race. Do I not remember though in the dim and distant past, Aintree’s then owner Mirabel Topham, an actress in her younger days, once making a very amateurish attempt at doing so when the normal commentator stayed away?

Back to Steve. “Davy, I bet the heart rate goes through the roof when the race starts.”

Davy: “Yes, but it’s eerily quiet all the way round.” Davy valiantly and generously tries to get Andrew Thornton, another former jockey and regular Sky Sports Racing man in the north, also one of the pillars of the Cheltenham radio coverage, into the discussion, but he’s shut down.

Steve now must bring in the script he presumably wrote that morning, thus. “You might love the manicured greens of Augusta, the clean white lines of the football but this is all about the torn-up turf, mud, sand and hammering hooves.”

John says: “And torn-up tickets! It’s the biggest betting race of the year, so Rob?”

“I Am Maximus is down to 11/2 clear favourite ahead of 7/1 Panic Attack and 8/1 Jagwar.”

By now they were standing at the start and at 4.02 23, 12 minutes and two seconds after the half-time whistle at Brentford, they were off. The money had continued to go on I Am Maximus, apparently principally a £100k winning bet, reputedly from none other than his owner JP McManus. A hundred grand bet from JP is like a tenner from most of the punters there on the day and in the betting shops of the UK. Not to mention a fiver for you and me!

I stopped off straight after the race to get a bar of chocolate in a petrol station and got back to the car at 4.15 on the dot. Radio Five Live happily had sorted all the post-race thoughts from its team by then and we were back at Brentford. No need to retune then!

Bang on 5pm, the strains of the introduction to the station’s long-running Sports Report programme, still with Steve in the saddle, as it were, from Aintree. He did have a quite lengthy and informative interview with Willie Mullins, keeping John Hunt nearby to help Steve avoid the obvious blunders that the once-a-year “expert” can make.

Willie said how he had wanted to concentrate on the Gold Cup for I Am Maximus and leave the Grand National alone as he’s already won it. “But thankfully, JP was firm wanting him to have another try.”

Mullins suggested there would still be time to win a Gold Cup. “Didn’t L’Escargot win a Gold Cup and then a Grand National?”

Quite right in some respect, but the amazing L’Escargot won two Gold Cups, age seven and eight, then at the age of 12, at the fourth Aintree attempt, overturned a previous defeat in the race by Red Rum, by 15 lengths all from the last fence! How good was he? That was one of two second places for the race’s greatest alongside the three wins. Even the very classy I Am Maximus would do well to match that!

Having backed L’Escargot for that first Gold Cup at 14/1 ante-post I watched him drift to 33’s on the day, but it remains one of the thrills of my racing life being there to see him win, as it was on my first ever visit to the meeting when he won a division of the Gloucestershire Hurdle.

To win a Grand National five years after a first Gold Cup was astonishing. His owner, Raymond Guest, also went down in history for a similarly amazing double. He was the winning owner of one of the great Derby winners, Sir Ivor, trained by Vincent O’Brien after the legendary handler had packed up the jumping game as he had nothing more to prove.

Last week I said I was bored with the Grand National as it had all become too predictable. Mullins did win it again, but he only had a fifth and an eighth among his other seven runners. There were again two UK horses in the first ten, McManus’ Iroko and Johnnywho (4th). The former followed I Am Maximus through late on to pip Joseph O’Brien’s Jordans for second after the Jordans had looked to have the race won under Ben Jones’ aggressive ride.

That meant last year’s second and fourth moved up one spot and two respectively, as the winner, Mullins’ Nick Rockett, was a late withdrawal. Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero reckon runner-up Iroko can make it third time lucky next year.

Although rated 150, so guaranteed to get in the race, Jordans had only one win from 11 runs over fences on his card, but fortunately that was over three miles, otherwise he wouldn’t have been qualified to run. Joseph O’Brien is sure to exploit him to great effect in the future.

There was a measure of unpredictability this year, as seven horses fell with another seven unseating their riders as 16 of the 34 finished the course. At the first fence Patrick Mullins, last year’s winning rider, was unseated from his father’s Grangeclare West, the third home last year. Two more casualties quickly followed: Quai De Bourbon, also Mullins, 33/1, fell at the second and Panic Attack, badly hampered by the latter there, departed at the big ditch that followed.

So Dan Skelton didn’t bring home the Grand National, but four winners on the day (184 on the season) brought him to £4,762,920 against Mullins’ Grand National-enhanced figure of £2,668,886. Dan could be in reach of that unprecedented £5 million seasonal haul with money aplenty on offer at Ayr and Sandown and loads of little fish in between (little fish are sweet, as Arthur Stephenson used to say). I think he can do it.

As to the BBC, I don’t want you to think that Steve Crossman made a bad job of things. It’s just that whoever produced that show ought to have switched the entire football coverage from 3pm onwards to Sports Extra, leaving a full hour to dissect the many interesting aspects of what they did repeatedly say was the world’s biggest race. Then another period of reflection bringing it up to 5pm and Sports Report.

In the end, it was 12 minutes and two seconds, with at least half of it given away to keep us racing fans abreast of events at St Mirren and the travails of Harrogate Town.

I wonder how the executives at the beleaguered Beeb can equate six minutes as the “best build-up to the biggest betting race in the world” – with the reputed (was it 70?) BBC staff being sent across to cover the Masters golf at the same time at licence-payers’ expense. That’s another major event you need to search for elsewhere to see it live.

The BBC has had more than its share of scandals in recent times. That they no longer televise the Grand National is shameful enough, leaving it to ITV and Racing TV. But to think that six minutes is regarded as the best build-up coverage shows just how warped the Corporation’s values have become.

- TS

Monday Musings: Bored of the National?

6 April 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Are you bored with the Grand National? I am and I would never have believed it could happen in the days when I used to make my selection in the Daily Telegraph for the race straight after going to the weights press conference, writes Tony Stafford.

That started, believe it or not, when Red Rum got up to beat Crisp in 1973 – he won it twice more, of course – and happened another eight times in my three decades of trying. Then there were 40 runners, stiff, unforgiving fences, many fallers, few completions and the race, if not stopping a nation, as the Melbourne Cup reputedly does, was the vehicle for office sweepstakes all around the country, mainly eagerly contested by people who never bet otherwise.

Last year, with the new limitation on runners, down to 34, easier obstacles and a slightly shorter trip, it has become almost another long-distance steeplechase on a park course to be mopped up by the big Irish brigades.

With no incentive not to run as the need for specialist jumping skills other than getting from one side to the other has become irrelevant, the same old names will be trotted out year on year.

The 2025 version had the full complement of 34 runners and 16 of them (41%) completed. The so-called “fearsome” Aintree fences, 30 of them, accounted for only five casualties. Three horses fell, one unseated the rider and a fifth was brought down, so just 14% actual casualties. Additionally, 13 were pulled up.

I could have landed anywhere over the past half Century, but I thought 20 years would be enough for most racing fans’ appetites. That year, 40 horses took their place in the line-up, just nine finished – Numbersixvalverde, trained by Martin Brassil in Ireland, beating the 2005 winner Hedgehunter, notable as the first Grand National winner for Willie Mullins.

Hedgehunter had another three attempts, during sparing campaigns between tries, while in 2006, the 2004 winner, Amberleigh House, ridden by Graham Lee with to my mind the outstanding ride in the race during my seven decades of watching, was pulled up as a 14-year-old behind Numbersixvalverde.

It took another 19 years before Ireland’s perennial champion trainer added to it with I Am Maximus, who tried valiantly to repeat history for the stable last April, failing but only in an honourable second place as Hedgehunter had done almost two decades earlier.

Here, Saturday’s top-weight had to give best to the almost unconsidered Nick Rockett, a 33/1 shot ridden by the trainer’s son and supreme amateur Patrick Mullins. He too will be back again, second highest-rated after having an interrupted career since.

To complete the Mullins stranglehold in terms of recent Aintree form, we have Grangeclare West, third last year and now nicely into form having won the Bobbyjo Chase, often a good guide to the big one. There he beat another of the high-weighted horses in Saturday’s line-up in Gordon Elliott’s Gerri Colombe.

Gerri Colombe is one of five Elliott horses guaranteed to run, and with the riches on offer, £500,000 to the winner and a total of £1,000,000 to disperse, it’s hardly surprising that we’ll be lucky to get more than one or two absentees by race time.

Elliott trained Silver Birch, the 2007 winner, so early into his training career that he had yet to train a single winer in Ireland. He has proved throughout the subsequent two decades, with a blip or two along the way, that he knows how to prepare an Aintree horse, winning twice with Tiger Roll, who probably would have equalled Red Rum’s three wins if Covid hadn’t intervened to stop the 2020 edition of the race.

Belatedly back to 2006, I must say there was one element I hadn’t either been aware of or simply forgot. The winner’s owner, Mr Carroll, collected a few pennies short of £400,000. With the loss of value due to annual inflation over the intervening time, that equates to an equivalent of almost £700,000 today.

So, while we gasp at the big prize pool on offer, it still hasn’t kept pace with inflation, not that Mullins minded 12 months ago when he copped £885k of the million total on offer.

In 2006, in a field of 40, nine got round. Eleven fell, six unseated rider and two refused. As last year, there were plenty of pulled-up horses, 12 against 13 last year. Thus only 22% finished the course and another 46% were casualties.

If you thought Elliott had a strong hand as he aims for a fourth win in the race, Mullins with nine of the 34 guaranteed places, has 26% of the entire field. Add the other three top Irish jumps trainers, Gavin Cromwell, Henry de Bromhead and Joseph O’Brien, and you get 21 of the 34, almost two-thirds. Only nine UK-trained horses are guaranteed a run, two of them, Iroko and Jagwar, owned by JP McManus and trained by Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero, both with decent chances.

Others I would like to see win are Mr Vango, trained by my long-term Daily Telegraph colleague, the late John Oaksey’s daughter Sara Bradstock and Panic Attack, trained by Dan Skelton.

Panic Attack has been a star already this season, the ten-year-old mare impressively winning the Coral Gold Cup (formerly Hennessy) over 3m2f and after another easy win at Cheltenham In January, she then finished third to Mullins’ brilliant mare Dinoblue in the Grade 1 Mares Chase when dropping back to 2m4f at the Festival last time out.

Panic Attack has been a stand-out contributor to Dan Skelton’s season in which he has become the first trainer ever to break the £4 million barrier in a season. Last year Mullins earned £3,570k from his UK runners, but that had twice previously been exceeded by Paul Nicholls, Skelton’s mentor.

Nicholls set a mark of £3,646,511 in 2007/08 and then exceeded it by a paltry £75 another 15 seasons later. If Skelton could win with Panic Atack it would push his takings towards an almost unthinkable £5 million. To achieve that though he would need to pick up many of the valuable prizes this week at Aintree, next week at Ayr and on finals day at Sandown later in the month.

It would be a supreme achievement should Panic Attack win. She would be the first mare to do so since the Jack O’Donoghue-trained Nickel Coin in 1951, 75 years ago. Neville Crump, three years earlier, won with Sheila’s Cottage, the first of her sex to be successful in the race since 1902. It isn’t easy – only 13 mares have won in the near 200 year history of the race, most in the days when they were walked to the course! If she does win, it would rank as Dan’s most treasured career moment.

Meanwhile, with the UK turf flat campaign still in its “phoney war” phase, most interest this Easter is with the domestic Mullins/Elliott rivalry at Fairyhouse and Cork yesterday and today.

Numerically there isn’t much between them with Mullins running a total of 52 horses over the two days and Elliott 48, but as ever it is in the Graded races where Mullins holds the advantage. He needed to retrieve a little over £300k on his rival, having lodged €4,175,250 with 172 wins from 704 runs and 284 individual horses.

Elliott’s 171 wins have come from 1066 runs from 314 individual horses. They don’t race every day in Ireland by a long shot but that’s an average of two runs every day for Mullins and three for Elliott. Would you want to take them on? That makes it even more admirable that young Mr Skelton – maybe not so young now – has managed to see everyone off and in record-breaking fashion too!

The feature of yesterday’s racing was Harry Cobden’s continuing quest, eventually into the 30s, to ride a first winner in Ireland. JP McManus’ retained jockey for next season finally got the job done on the last of six Mullins runners, five of them favourites, and four, like the sole winner Funiculi Funicula, at odds-on.

As to my Grand National 1-2-3 it’s Panic Attack from Banbridge (Joseph O’Brien) and Mr Vango. Sorry Willie, but there’s always next year.

- TS

Monday Musings: Crisfords Cash in on DWC Night

30 March 2026/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Few UK trainers have been as consistent over recent years as the Crisfords, father Simon and son Ed, writes Tony Stafford. Between 2022 and last year they maintained a strike rate not far off 20%, consecutively earning £1.3million, then £1.7million, and then £1.4 million the last twice. Those four campaigns brought a total of 294 wins from 1,542 runs and just short of £6 million in stakes.

With runners in six of the races on Saturday’s Dubai World Cup meeting on the Meydan racetrack, despite winning only one of them, their combined haul from three placed efforts in the night’s biggest events and a couple of relatively irrelevant minor prizes from the other two, they cleaned up a total of £2,946,000 for their owners – half of their entire total from four years’ exceptional success in Newmarket.

The Crisfords do not mess around unduly with the generally paltry sums available in domestic all-weather racing (next Friday being the great exception to that, of course) in the flat turf close season. Instead, Simon has made excellent use of the many decades of association with Sheikh Mohammed, for whom he was a long-term advisor before taking up training, to build a formidable satellite yard in Dubai every winter.

While horses running for the Crisfords in Godolphin blue are a rarity, the connection is still patently obvious. On Saturday, World Cup Day at Meydan, some were surprised that the meeting went ahead with the backdrop of the Iran war and its effects on several Middle East states, including the United Arab Emirates.

For those closest to the racing industry there, abandonment would have been, for want of a better word, a tragedy. Had the Crisfords been unable to run their six runners on the card, presumably most of them would have been on an Emirates flight back to the UK for the forthcoming turf season.

As I said earlier, all six earned a pot with £11k for eighth going to Cover Up and £7k more for Telemark’s seventh place at least helping towards the expenses for their owners. The tempo quickened, though, when in the 2m Group 2 race, chock-full of UK and Irish talent, their five-year-old mare Fairy Glen made it five wins in 11 career starts, defying odds of 20/1 to do so.

Having performed consistently last year in decent races at around 1m6f, it was a clever intuition by the training duo to drop back to 1m1f for a Group 2 fillies’ and mares’ race at Meydan last month. She came through that relative speed test with a snug win under Mickael Barzalona and the pair teamed up successfully once more on Saturday.

This time it was a 2m Group 2 against males and she got the better of recent Group 1 and Group 3 winners in a hotly contested affair. That win was worth £429k, but their three later runners, none of them winners, made even that sum, as the Americans might say it, “pocket change”.

First came Quddwah, tackling the world’s second-top-rated turf horse from 2025, Ombudsman, in the Dubai Turf over 1m1f. Ombudsman, trained by another Newmarket-based father-and-son team in John and Thady Gosden duly maintained his status with a workmanlike success.

Behind him, the Crisfords’ six-year-old entire horse, Quddwah, sneaked up the inside but Ombudsman, with William Buick revelling in riding in Godolphin blue, came wide and fast to win by a couple of lengths. The prize for the winner was £2,148,000, while Quddwah’s efforts under Christian Demuro earned £740k.

Then it was the turn of the seven-year-old gelding West Wind Blows, the outsider of five opponents for the number one turf horse of 2025, Calandagan, in the Sheema Classic. Despite being totally ignored at 33/1 Rossa Ryan took the Crisford runner to the front from the start, setting a strong pace.

Inevitably, we thought, Rossa must have got the fractions wrong, but his mount stuck on very gamely for all that he could not resist Calandagan, the 1-4 favourite, ridden with restraint by Barzalona. This three-quarter length winner picked up £2,577k with £888,888 going to owner Abdulla Al Mansoori for West Wind Blows. William Knight has had plenty of sport in Dubai in recent years with another of Mr Al Mansoori’s horses, the talented sprinting filly Frost At Dawn.

The Crisfords have not restricted themselves to turf racing at the Dubai Carnival and, in the five-year-old Frankel gelding Meydaan, they presented a serious opponent in the Dubai World Cup to the obvious favourite and top dirt horse in the world, Japan’s Forever Young.

On a night when form in the turf races stood up, the events run on the dirt were much less predictable. Had Forever Young justified odds of 8/11, he would have passed the prizemoney haul of Hong Kong’s Romantic Warrior, a horse he beat in Riyadh early last year.

Forever Young fell short though, running a sluggish race, and he never looked like catching front-running Magnitude, trained in the United States by Steve Asmussen and ridden by Jose Ortiz. Meydaan stayed on well to finish third, almost three lengths behind the runner-up, under Buick.

Magnitude goes back to the US with £5,155,000 to his name, with Forever Young hardly making it worth his while at £1,777,777! The second ‘all the eights’ of the night for the Crisford team, almost rounded it out at £3 million.

On a day of plenty for the haves, it was great that a lesser-known name on the international stage should share another Dubai evening in the limelight. North Of England-based jockey Connor Beasley has struck up a nice partnership with local trainer Ahmad Al Harmash. They first teamed up eight winters ago, and their partnership developed over time.

Last year Beasley won two races on the same card, one of them a race for Arabians. Now, owner and rider won successive Group 1 sprint races, the first of them on turf and the second on dirt, completing a 376/1 double (28/1 then 12/1) and collecting more than £1.5 million for the two winning prizes.

In 2022, Beasley’s best season in the UK brought 90 wins for £1.41million in total prizemoney from 737 rides. He eclipsed that tally on Saturday with two career-defining victories - in 35 minutes! He and Rossa Ryan were straight back into action at Doncaster yesterday, initially on big-priced animals in the second race, worth £5,400 to the winner.

While many eyes were focusing on Meydan on Saturday, the start of the turf flat season at Doncaster and a nice card at Kempton helped whet the appetite for the coming domestic season. It’s appropriate that the clocks will have gone forward by the time these notes are in the ether.

Star of the show domestically was Jack Channon, son of Mick, who won both the William Hill Lincoln and the Spring Mile, the latter race for horses that hadn’t made the main event. Urban Lion just dipped in time to win by a nose in a desperate finish to win the Lincoln under Ed Greatrex, denying James Owen’s Rogue Diplomat of what would have been a handicap five-timer.

If the Rogues Gallery group of owners had to feel a little disappointed to have been beaten by such a narrow margin, they might muse that their four-year-old had risen only 14lb since launching his winning sequence at Newmarket last August, the margins being in turn a neck, half a length, three-quarters of a length and finally a nose over 7f at Doncaster last October.

Channon’s other winner, Mazcala, won much more comfortably, sprinting clear for George Bass in the Spring Mile. Colin Keane, on his first day riding in the UK since winning the Cheltenham bumper a couple of weeks ago, was runner-up on the gambled-on joint-favourite Far From Dandy. We’ll be seeing much more of Keane over here from now on, as he’ll be riding for Juddmonte this campaign.

I mentioned Good Friday obliquely earlier on, but it will be my next date on the track, aiming at Chelmsford City where Rogue Diplomat’s trainer James Owen hopes to run another of his money-spinners, Carlton, in the £30k 1m6f handicap. Having lobbed in over hurdles at Huntingdon last time out, my friend Mick Godderidge and his pals will be anticipating win number nine on the course to go with a couple of wins over jumps, all since December 2024. Mick says, “We don’t mind waiting a bit before getting the run going over hurdles!”

Owen amazingly has already won 37 flat races this year at a strike rate of 18 percent. That goes with a five percent better ratio of victories to runs from his 80 winners over jumps this campaign. There’s upwardly mobile and then there’s James Owen!

- TS

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