Venetia Williams’ chaser can follow the route taken by greats such as Arkle and Burrough Hill Lad to Kempton’s big prizeIt was good enough for the likes of Arkle and Burrough Hill Lad, but a prep run in a handicap before the King George VI Chase has very much fallen out of favour in recent decades with just two horses having won the Boxing Day feature in the last 24 years on the back of an outing in handicap company.One of them, however, was Venetia Williams’s Teeton Mill, who took what was then the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury in November 1998 and followed up at Kempton a few weeks later, and the same trainer’s L’Homme Presse has an obvious...
The greatest jockey of all time debate is best left until he leaves the stage but the Italian must be part of the discussionThe best-laid plans, as racing people know only too well, can often go awry, but Frankie Dettori’s decision to set out an 11-month schedule for his farewell tour next year should mean that he will be appearing at a racecourse near you at least one more time before he finally hangs up his boots. It has been one of the greatest riding careers of them all, and we may never see another jockey with Dettori’s unique combination of gifts, both in and out of the saddle, which made him a household name.Many smaller tracks will be hoping...
Leading jockeys fear the run-up to the Cheltenham Festival will be littered with bans over new riding restrictions“As a collective of jockeys, we’re all together,” Nico de Boinville said after winning the first race on Friday, a clear sign that, despite general delight that the card had beaten the frost, there is a storm brewing ahead of the introduction of new whip rules by the British Horseracing Authority in the run-up to Cheltenham’s Festival meeting in March.De Boinville was echoing the view of Harry Cobden, the No 1 jockey to Paul Nicholls, the champion trainer, who described the new rules as “bloody ridiculous” after riding a winner at Taunton on Thursday. Under the new regime, riders will be banned from...
Claim that British trainers spend too much time ‘ducking and diving’ with their horses has dominated Tingle Creek build-upAs a response to Gordon Elliott’s claim earlier this week that British trainers spend too much time “ducking and diving” with their best horses in the first few months of the season, Saturday’s Tingle Creek at Sandown Park could hardly have been timed any better.With the sole exception of Nube Negra, the best two-milers that Britain can muster are due to go to post in front of a big pre-Christmas crowd on Saturday, including Shishkin, the winner of an epic Clarence House Chase at Ascot last February, and his successor as the top two-mile novice, Alan King’s Edwardstone. Continue reading...
The prospect of having a clash like this to sell to the public next year will have racing’s various PR squads gnawing at the bitForty-eight hours on from an apparently flawless performance like Constitution Hill’s 12-length success at Newcastle on Saturday, the adrenalin has worn off and it is generally possible to make a more objective assessment of the form. Perhaps the second-favourite ran well below form, went off too fast or made a mistake at a key stage. Maybe the winner was the only one that acted on the ground.This time, there’s nothing. Not even the faintest hint of a hole to niggle away at. Constitution Hill travelled supremely well from the first stride, settled easily into his unfamiliar...