The Queen may not make it and the cost-of-living crisis could keep others away as meeting makes tweaks to boost bettingIt will be a case of something old, something new when an unrestricted crowd returns to Royal Ascot on Tuesday, 1,088 days after Cleonte and Silvestre de Sousa eased to a comfortable success in the Queen Alexandra Stakes on the last day of the meeting in 2019.No one could have imagined at the time that it would be the last race in front of a packed grandstand at the Royal meeting for three long years, and the returning fans and fashionistas will find much that is reassuringly familiar. Continue reading...
For the first time since 1994 in the UK or Ireland, two horses with the same name are running in the same racePunters fancying a flutter at Gowran Park on Sunday will have to have their wits about them as for the first time since 1994 in the UK or Ireland two horses with the same name are running in the same race.Sierra Nevada (No 5) and Sierra Nevada (No 15) will set off in the 4.50pm contest at the Co Kilkenny track and the commentator is also likely to face a tricky time as almost inevitably the horses have been drawn out of the hat virtually next to each other in stalls one and three. Continue reading...
Desert Crown and Stone Age head the market but Saturday’s Classic at Epsom has a field packed with credible winnersThere is a familiar shape to the betting for the Derby at Epsom on Saturday, with the most impressive of the recent trial winners – Desert Crown and Stone Age – heading the market against an extended list of lightly raced opponents with significant scope for improvement on their form to date.It was much the same story in each of the last four seasons, in fact, and all four favourites – Bolshoi Ballet (11-8), Kameko (5-2), Sir Dragonet (11-4) and Saxon Warrior (4-5) – failed even to reach the first three. Continue reading...
Bellhops, chambermaids, housewives and dentists loved to bet on Piggott and, at his peak, he cost bookmakers millions in lost earnings• Lester Piggott, the outstanding postwar jockey, dies aged 86The New York Times published a piece about Lester Piggott in 1985, marking what proved to be only the first of the great man’s retirements. Reflecting on his accumulation of fans over the previous three decades, the paper declared: “They’d bet Piggott no matter what the odds on his horses were. In Britain, where one can hardly pass a bellhop or chambermaid or housewife who doesn’t have at least a few quid on a nag with their local turf accountant, Piggott became an idol of huge proportion.”One can only guess at...
A man of few words, Piggott became the first great jockey of the television age and a darling among punters due to his ruthless dedication to winning“Never” is a word to be used with care in a sport founded on uncertainty and chance. But it is safe to say that there will never be another jockey who connects as thoroughly and deeply with the racing and betting public as Lester Piggott during the three decades when he was the dominant force in British Flat racing.The reason is Piggott’s timing. Not just the split-second judgment that so often put him on the right side of a head-bobbing photo-finish, or allowed him to deliver Royal Academy on the line in the 1990...