Veteran missed the King George with a bruised foot, which continues to trouble him, and the Gold Cup is not an optionThe bruised foot which caused Thistlecrack to miss the King George VI Chase is still troubling him three weeks later, Colin Tizzard said on Tuesday. Connections have decided not to give him an entry in the Cheltenham Gold Cup and he will race over hurdles if he turns up at Cheltenham for the March Festival.“He’s still not quite right,” the Dorset trainer said. “It’s the injury he had at Christmas. It’s only a small one but it’s there and things like that keep recurring with him.” Related: Talking Horses: debate over deals with betting firms to rumble on Doncaster1.05...
Altior’s withdrawal put the spotlight on how trainers with bookmaker deals should handle market-sensitive informationThe increasingly vexed question of whether trainers and other licence holders should enter commercial associations with betting firms seems likely to be the subject of discussions between trade bodies and the British Horseracing Authority over the days and weeks ahead, though perhaps not quite so imminently as seemed the case on Sunday morning.Rupert Arnold, the chief executive of the National Trainers Federation (NTF), seemed clear during an interview on Sky Sports Racing’s Sunday Debate programme that he expected the issue to be raised during one of the NTF’s “regular liaison meetings” with the BHA. “I am sure they [the BHA] will discuss it with us,” Arnold...
The first female rider to win a Grade One race at the Cheltenham Festival has found the going tougher this season but is back in the spotlight at Kempton on SaturdayIf there is a gene for positivity, Bryony Frost has it twice. “It’s a long way off if you look at the top of the mountain sometimes,” she said this week, on the road home from Catterick after finishing fourth and then last on her only rides. “It can be daunting; hence why I never set any goals. But, if you make every step a forward one, going uphill and improving in some way or another in life, then you’re doing just fine and wherever you end up is where...
Peter Chapple-Hyam and Karl Burke are among the trainers to support the high-profile bloodstock operation after Martyn Meade cut his ties with themThe high-profile bloodstock operation Phoenix Thoroughbreds suffered another setback on Friday morning when it was reported by the Racing Post that the trainer Martyn Meade had cut ties with them. News broke in November that Amer Abdulaziz Salman, the man behind Phoenix, had been accused of money-laundering by a convicted fraudster during a court case in New York, an allegation that Abdulaziz has strenuously denied.“It’s a terrible shock,” Meade told The Guardian at the time though he added that nothing had been proved. On Friday, the Post reported him as saying: “I no longer train for Phoenix”. Related:...
The ultimate legacy of the six racing-free days in Britain last year may well be a racehorse population across Europe with an even stronger barrier against flu infectionAlmost exactly 11 months ago, on 7 February 2019, racing woke up to the news that ‘everything’s off’. Three horses in Donald McCain’s yard, all of which had been vaccinated against equine flu, had tested positive for an American strain of the virus and British racing went into lockdown for the next six days as the British Horseracing Authority worked to contain the outbreak.Labs worked around the clock to test thousands of swabs, and in all, 23 meetings were lost as a result, including Newbury’s Betfair Hurdle card on 9 February, probably the...