Your guide to a packed Saturday’s TV racing from Wincanton, Doncaster, Aintree and the Breeders’ Cup meeting in KentuckyAt the end of fireworks week, Danny Whizzbang (3.35) can prove an aptly named winner of the Badger Beers Silver Trophy, this talented young chaser sure to be suited by a sound surface as he makes his handicap debut. From the Paul Nicholls stable that has won Wincanton’s biggest race 10 times, he can build on the promise he showed as a novice.He didn’t win after beating Reserve Tank last November but soft ground in the Kauto Star and the Reynoldstown did not help and subsequent wind surgery may make a difference. Present Man will run his usual sound race while Sizing...
The Breeders’ Cup’s unusual funding model has helped ensure that its big prize money pot will be unchanged from 2019Around two-dozen horses will make the trip from Europe to run at the Breeders’ Cup meeting at Keeneland on 6 and 7 November, when prize money across the event’s 14 races will be maintained at last year’s total of $28m (£21.2m). Previous Group One winners due to line up in Lexington, Kentucky include Magical, Tarnawa, Lord North, Mogul and Kameko, this year’s 2,000 Guineas winner, while both James Fanshawe and Nigel Tinkler will field their first runners at the meeting.The grandstands at Keeneland will be empty when the meeting gets underway on Friday week, just as they are across much of...
The number of fatal injuries to horses at Santa Anita is an unfolding catastrophe – another in the Breeders’ Cup could conceivably spell the end of racing in CaliforniaOn 18 October 1973, I had a bet on a horse at a racecourse for the first time. Well, strictly speaking, my dad backed the horse for me, as I was eight years old at the time. Moolahs Memory was an 80-1 outsider and ran like it, though he did beat one of his 11 opponents to the wire. A couple of races later, I picked out another outsider, Kings Flier. He sounded fast – and finished second. The place payoff at 13-1 meant I left the course feeling rich beyond dreams.In...
Breeders’ Cup officials meet to decide whether to switch the meeting from Santa Anita after a sudden spate of fatal injuriesThe board of the Breeders’ Cup will meet on Thursday with a decision seemingly imminent on whether to switch this year’s $28m two-day meeting, which is scheduled for 1 and 2 November, away from troubled Santa Anita Park to Churchill Downs in Kentucky, which hosted the event last year.Preparations to hold the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita in just over four months have been continuous since it was awarded the event for a record 10th time in August 2018. The track is one of the most famous and historic in world racing, has an unforgettable setting beneath the San Gabriel...
There is a distinct sense that Aidan O’Brien feels Mendelssohn will run a big race in this year’s ClassicIt was a stop-and-stare moment at Churchill Downs on Thursday morning as a 15-strong cortege of runners from Aidan O’Brien’s stable made their way from the quarantine barn to the dirt track for some light exercise. Mendelssohn, who runs in the Classic, led the way with the trainer’s son Donnacha in the saddle, followed by a long line of runners with obvious chances in their respective races, including Sergei Prokofiev (Juvenile Turf Sprint), Just Wonderful (Juvenile Fillies’ Turf), Anthony Van Dyck (Juvenile Turf), Happily (Mile), Gustav Klimt (Mile) and Magical, who will be a significant opponent for Enable in Saturday’s Turf. Related: Breeders'...