Hi there It’s Arc weekend and plenty has been written about Enable, with the Racing Post’s well-respected judge Paul Kealy putting forward some sound reasons why the favourite “won’t be beaten.” If that were the case, with his assertion that … Read More »

‘Oh the Woolston Ferry, it doesn’t travel very fast. It was never built for comfort, it was built to last’. Which it did, for 141 years, and Lowry painted it, but then they built the Itchen Bridge and that was … Read More »

I suppose we’ve all been in the game too long and love it too much to take all that much satisfaction from leaving certain races alone. On the other hand, it’s quite a while since I attempted to unravel the … Read More »

Another Carnaby seller has come and gone and it takes a while to get back into any sort of groove. This is a strange thing to admit, I suppose, because the race itself is hardly likely to linger in anyone’s … Read More »

Hi there! I have said before that to succeed at racing, be it as a trainer, jockey or punter, you need to be focused to an almost obsessional degree. To use contemporary jargon there has to be almost an OCD … Read More »

I suppose this will be the last racing week I attend for a while. When work comes to an end, as it surely must at 70, the thought occurs that there will need to be quite a lot of winners … Read More »

I sit in the middle of a good run. At least, I hope it’s the middle and not the end, Koeman having finished a fair fourth in the Shergar Cup  –  a near miss but no cigar, not that I’d … Read More »

Having named the first two in the Bunbury Cup (but the wrong way round) and the first and third in the Moet & Chandon International at Ascot (without showing a profit), I may be going through a difficult phase at … Read More »

Hi there Yesterday’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes turned into the epic battle everyone was hoping for. The ‘right’ horses filled the frame, with the admirably gutsy Salouen finishing a highly creditable fourth. However it was the … Read More »

The sad passing of John McCririck will not have surprised anyone who saw him at the races recently. The weight had dropped off him, he sat quietly in the press room and one had the feeling that he was merely … Read More »

I tried hard to help David Ashforth with his Grab A Grand quest in the Racing Post. Indeed, I spent two or three hours on Tuesday’s Brighton Placepot and went very close, though one can over-analyse these things. True, only … Read More »

I shall always remember Royal Ascot week 2019. A seventh grandchild arrived on Wednesday morning and 24 hours later I attended the funeral of Terry Geoghan, who managed a betting office in Bath for 30 years and was very popular … Read More »