Fears that Animal Rising protesters might spoil Epsom Classic proved unfounded with just one activist trespassing on courseIn the end the disruption didn’t amount to much; a solitary protester making it on to the course to down by the furlong pole to jeers and heckles from the grandstand. Luckily, or unluckily for him depending on how much he was channeling his inner Suffragette, the 14-strong field of horses was a mile away at the time and despite leading security a merry but brief dance, capture by several security staff was inevitable. He was dragged back under the inner rail from where he’d come, then sat upon until the 56 hooves had thundered past and he could be led away.As the...
Charlie Johnston’s colt showed enough at Newmarket last month to suggest he is worth backing in an open fieldThere is an old theory in racing that the best trial of all for the Derby is the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, and while many betting maxims are little more than a fast-track to destitution, 2023 could be a year when this one at least has some substance.The traditional trials, at Chester, Leopardstown, York and Lingfield, have failed to identify an outstanding candidate. Continue reading...
Veteran jockey in positive mood after riding his ‘big horse’ around Tattenham Corner without a second thought“It’s a lot of lasts,” Frankie Dettori said at Epsom on Monday morning, shortly after giving Arrest, his final Derby ride, a spin around Tattenham Corner before the Classic on Saturday week. “I went to Rome yesterday for my last Derby there. I saw the vice-prime minister and he gave me a plaque to congratulate me on my career, now it’s my last Derby and with a live chance, so good.”Dettori will be hoping for rather more than a plaque when he climbs aboard Arrest at around 1.15pm on 3 June, as the Chester Vase winner is one of nearly a dozen horses currently...
As infuriating as disruption to the most famous Classic would be, opposition to racing is likely to be around for some time All human life is present and cheerfully incorrect in William Powell Frith’s famous painting The Derby Day. Lords and ladies, rakes and scoundrels, circus performers and card sharps, high society and lowlifes and everything in between, all cheek-by-jowl at one of the very few events in Victorian Britain at which the classes mingled with relative freedom.If Frith were to return to Epsom for the Derby next month, 167 years since the one he initially sketched in 1856, he would still find a rich assortment of characters both in the grandstands and roaming free on the Hill – with,...
If a bookie is the only option for the Epsom Classic sponsor, it might be better to go with no sponsor at allIn its usual, almost apologetic style, the new British Flat season on turf will flicker into life at Doncaster on Saturday with the Lincoln Handicap, and this year the lack of fanfare in the country that gave the sport of organised horse racing to the world does not feel entirely misplaced.The 2023 campaign will begin without an obvious star to pin early hopes and dreams upon, since Baaeed is already settling in to his new life as a stallion while Little Big Bear, last year’s champion juvenile colt and 2,000 Guineas favourite, did not race beyond six furlongs...