America’s multi-million dollar meeting will overshadow the Melbourne Cup and the jumps racing at Aintree this weekWith all due respect to Australia, where the Melbourne Cup is due to stop the nation at around 4am GMT on Tuesday, the attention of the racing world this week will focus squarely on the Kentucky bluegrass, and the 14 Grade One events that make up the 39th running of the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland in Lexington this weekend.This news may also grate with diehard fans of the jumps, who will argue that the Grand Sefton Chase over the National fences at Aintree will generate far more betting turnover in the UK on Saturday than any of the events in Kentucky. But the simple...
Lucinda Russell’s front-running chaser has plenty in his favour for the first big clash of the new jumps season at WetherbyTwo of last National Hunt campaign’s best staying novice chasers will set out on their second season over fences in the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby on Saturday and Ahoy Senor (3.35) is worth backing at around 2-1 to improve his career record against Bravemansgame to three wins to one.Ahoy Senor’s fencing went to pieces in the closing stages of the Kauto Star Novice Chase at Kempton’s Christmas meeting, when Bravemansgame, the early favourite for Saturday’s race, recorded his only success against him in three attempts. Continue reading...
Even bookmakers were less than ecstatic about the prospect of adding another meeting to the jumps season’s highlight For a venue that was built on expecting the unexpected, and on an afternoon that veered from bright sunshine to downpours and back again, there was an odd sense of certainty as Cheltenham opened the doors for its new season on Friday. The Festival in March has been a four-day meeting since 2005, and despite years of debate, speculation and rumours that a fifth day was all but inevitable, the track announced earlier this week that that is how it will stay.More than 3,000 of Cheltenham’s 8,000 or so annual members responded to a survey on a fifth day, according to Ian...
French rider apologises after being banned two months
Keeps ride on Vadeni in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe
Christophe Soumillon has been banned for two months for appearing to elbow Rossa Ryan out of the saddle at Saint-Cloud on Friday.Soumillon was riding Syros in the Prix Thomas Bryon Jockey Club de Turquie and just before the field turned for home he moved towards Ryan on Ralph Beckett’s Captain Wierzba before elbowing his fellow rider. Continue reading...
Inviting punters to the top table would be a more radical move as the sport faces up to serious financial challenges The air was thick with good intentions when the sport’s movers and shakers emerged from two days of what looked suspiciously like crisis talks in central London last week. Specifics, on the other hand, were in very short supply.“Shared acceptance of the challenges”, “serious and radical changes” and “agreement of areas of focus for a strategy” were among the phrases in a joint statement issued by those in attendance, which ensured that most corporate-speak bingo cards were full well before halfway. And when a few snippets of detail did emerge on Sunday, these seemed not so much radical as...