Foot injury likely to scupper colt’s chances of running in Arc but plans in place to keep Epsom hero in training next season The chance that Desert Crown, who maintained his unbeaten record in the Derby at Epsom in June, will race again in his Classic season appeared to recede further on Friday when Bruce Raymond, racing manager for Saeed Suhail, the colt’s owner, admitted that Sir Michael Stoute is already running out of time to get Desert Crown ready for a race in October.Speaking at Goodwood, Raymond said: “I would say he’s doubtful [for the rest of the season]. There’s nothing major wrong with him [and] we’ll try to get him there, but it’s not the injury, it’s the...
Sight of another jockey on Stradivarius will be a tough one for Frankie Dettori to stomach on opening day of the meetingThere was very disappointing news on Monday when Coroebus, the 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes winner, was ruled out of his much-anticipated clash with Baaeed, the best miler since Frankel, in the Sussex Stakes at Glorious Goodwood on Wednesday.Godolphin, Coroebus’s owner, said on Twitter that the three-year-old had been “lame in his box this morning and after examination, was found to have an abscess in his left hind pastern. This is being treated and he will now target the Group One Prix Jacques le Marois [at Deauville in August].” Continue reading...
Switch to RTP comes amid anger over low prize money and means races will move to Sky’s racing channel from 2024The embarrassment of a horse race sans horses at Newbury on Saturday, apparently the result of a trainers’ boycott in protest at the prize money on offer, is already receding in the rearview mirror and, since this is the wacky world of racing, the next unseemly internal squabble will doubtless be along soon enough.But one line that emerged amid the claims and counter-claims over the £6,500 race that didn’t happen bears further examination. While doing what it could to defend its overall prize money offering in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, Newbury pointed out that it plans to boost...
Five cards on Monday and Tuesday have fallen by the wayside, while Super Sprint day at Newbury is down to six racesNewbury racecourse expects at least 20,000 racegoers to attend its Weatherbys Super Sprint card on Saturday, despite an apparent boycott of the final contest by trainers and owners, which has seen the schedule reduced to just six races.Thirteen horses from 10 stables were entered for the Stonegate Homes Fillies’ Novice Stakes, for three-year-olds and up over 10 furlongs and with a £3,510 first prize, earlier in the week but none were declared to run on Thursday morning. While there has been no formal confirmation that the contest fell victim to an organised boycott, the Racing Post has suggested the...
Although disqualification for excessive whip use is now on the table, its enforcement is likely to be vanishingly rareDavid Jones, the chair of the British Horseracing Authority’s whip consultation steering group, was keen to stress on Tuesday that its 20 recommendations on one of the most vexed issues in the sport should be seen as “a package” of measures, and one that all of its members – including those opposed to use of the whip for encouragement – could support.None the less, two proposed changes in particular inevitably leapt off the page when the group’s report was published on Tuesday: disqualification of horses when riders commit an “egregious” breach of the rules, and a ban on using the whip in...