It will be a major disappointment if the favourite cannot deliver the goods in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown on TuesdayThe last three winners of the Grade One Savills Chase – A Plus Tard, Kemboy and Delta Work – are all in the hunt for a second success at Leopardstown on Tuesday, but there is no doubt where the punters will be placing their faith as A Plus Tard and Rachael Blackmore are certain to start favourite, probably at odds-on.Henry de Bromhead’s chaser has raced only twice since powering past Kemboy and Melon in the final strides 12 months ago, but both runs strongly suggested that A Plus Tard is improving all the time as a close second behind Minella...
Four of the last five winners of the Welsh Grand National are back for another crack at the race on MondayFour of the last five winners of the Welsh Grand National are back for another crack at the race on Monday, including Native River, the 2018 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, who will attempt to repeat his memorable success under top weight of 11st 12lb five years ago.Colin Tizzard’s chaser would be a hugely popular winner but he needs something close to a career-best performance to win off 166 just a few days before his 12th birthday and others make more appeal. Continue reading...
The grey runner looks overpriced to give Willie Mullins his second win in the big Boxing Day race, 20 years on from his firstSix of the nine runners for the King George VI Chase on Boxing Day have at least one Grade One win to their name already and five are expected to start single-figure odds, so the 2021 running of Kempton Park’s showpiece event has fair claims to be not only the strongest renewal this century but also the most competitive.Two serious contenders from Ireland - including Minella Indo, last season’s Gold Cup winner – add to the depth in a race that has not crossed the water since Kicking King’s second win in 2005, and Rachael Blackmore’s mount...
JP McManus’s £570,000 gamble on Jonbon looks increasingly like a smart investment after the horses’s smooth win on Friday JP McManus’s £570,000 gamble on Jonbon after his win in an Irish point-to-point last November looks increasingly like a copper-bottomed investment after five-year-old extended his unbeaten record under Rules to three races in the Grade Two Kennel Gate Novice Hurdle at Ascot on Friday.Jonbon also had an exceptional pedigree to recommend him after his success at Dromahane in County Cork last year, as Douvan, his full brother, won 13 races in a row after joining Willie Mullins in 2014, including two Grade One events at the Cheltenham Festival. Continue reading...
If jockeys accept the flaws in the long-standing practice of self-policing disputes behind closed doors the sport can move onNearly three days on from its astonishingly ill-judged response to the finding that Robbie Dunne had bullied and harassed his fellow rider Bryony Frost over seven months in 2020, the Professional Jockeys’ Association finally stopped digging on Sunday. Frost, it accepted, really had been bullied: on the racecourse, in the weighing room and online. It wasn’t just a feeling after all.The PJA’s splenetic statement ran to nearly 1,000 words, most of which had apparently been written for the benefit of any or every jump jockey bar the one it should have been doing its utmost to support. Continue reading...