Blog Archive

With equine welfare becoming an increasingly hot potato, the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) are rarely going to have a quiet day at the office. But a number of sanctions they have dished out in recent weeks and months have been met with …

Just a week after experiencing the highest of highs, Bryony Frost has quite literally come down to earth with a bump. A matter of days since she created history at the Cheltenham Festival by becoming the first female jockey to ride a …

Did you ever hear the one about the racehorse who escaped from a course and went into town for a pizza? Yes, it does sound like the opening line from one of the worst ‘dad jokes’ in history’, but it actually came …

It was the kind of day that punters dream of, and the kind that has the bookies fleeing for the hills with their tails between their legs. Thursday at Cheltenham Festival 2019 represented something of a ‘dayus horribilis’ for the bookmakers, with …

It would be fair to say that Tuesday belonged to the bookies at the 2019 Cheltenham Festival. Incredibly, only one favourite won during a chaotic opening day of the meeting that was sabotaged somewhat by the rapidly softening ground. The bookies’ biggest …

Humiliated in the Champions League, humbled in the Copa del Rey and 12 points adrift of Barcelona in La Liga….a change was necessary at Real Madrid, to say the least. And so Santiago Solari, a risky appointment in the first place who …

For all the excitement and drama of the 2018 Cheltenham Festival, there was still plenty of sadness in that even horses died due to injuries suffered at the meeting. That forced festival organisers, and the wider racing community as a whole, to …

The betting industry has been awash with mergers, acquisitions and strategic partnerships these past couple of years. And the latest cab of the rank was 888 Holdings’ decision to purchase certain sectors of the BetBright brand from ownership company Deadsert last week. …

They are a nuisance that have untold security threats; even bringing Heathrow and Gatwick Airports to their knees over Christmas and into January. Drones are a new headache for event organisers to tackle, whether they are erroneously flown too close by a …

When we think of horse racing, we generally think of grassy landscapes in leafy UK and Irish towns, or the showy dirt tracks over in America. Well, thanks to one ambitious entrepreneur, racing could be about to get something of a facelift. …

There can only be a handful of jobs in the world where the public knows more about the security of your job than you do. One of those is undoubtedly football manager, with supporter opinion a key aspect in if – and …

It is the last thing you want to hear when you are expecting to head to the Cheltenham Festival with a red-hot favourite in tow. But it’s the news that Joseph O’Brien had to deliver to JP McManus: Le Richebourg, his ante-post …

It was a case of nearly but not quite for the column last week, with three out of five selections landing. Of the two that let us down, we were undone by Will Keane’s injury time goal for Stoke at Ipswich, while …

Three winners, a push and a loss: that was the sum of our football accumulator tips last time out. Lille dominated their game against Montpellier but couldn’t quite find a winner – our Draw No Bet stake was returned to us, while …

With the equine flu outbreak now a mere footnote in UK racing’s history, we can now look forward to a cracking few months on the National Hut campaign with earnest. The Cheltenham Festival comes first, of course, and that will undoubtedly be …

It was a profitable week for this column last time out, even if the statistics weren’t mind blowing. Three of our five legs landed, but with that trio coming at meaty prices of 10/11, 7/10 and 3/4, singles backers were rewarded with …

There’s nothing quite like one leg of an acca letting you down to quite get the old adrenaline pumping, but we’re well versed in the art of the near miss by now! Yep, we were let down by one leg last time …

It’s been the biggest will they, won’t they story in racing for years, and even then the British Horseracing Authority milked the suspense by making their announcement later than planned. But the good news is that UK racing is fit and well, …

It’s a situation of such significance and magnitude that the mainstream press are taking an interest. The equine influenza outbreak has forced UK horse racing into a full-on lockdown, with meetings cancelled up and down the land from Thursday onwards and until …

The British Racehorse Authority (BHA) has taken the decision to cancel all British race meetings on Thursday 7th February due to three confirmed cases of equine flu. A ban which they have extended to Wednesday 13th February at the earliest. The yard …