Ryanair Chase
Ryanair Chase A first winner of the week for Henry De Bromhead and it is a deserved Grade 1 success for Heart Wood, who was 2nd in this race to Fact to File 12-months ago. He’s had a different campaign this year and having won the New Year’s Day Chase at Tramore, he was kept […]
BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase
BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase Il Était Temps I have put the name of the winning horse at the top of this piece, but in reality I should probably have put the name of the jockey first. This was a riding masterclass from Paul Townend, who read the race and in particular the early pace […]
Unibet Champion Hurdle Challenge Trophy
Unibet Champion Hurdle Challenge Trophy Lossiemouth Will she? Won’t She? Should she? Yes. The debate that has raged on for the last 3 seasons is finally over and the question has been answered. Lossiemouth is a Champion Hurdler. This was a 4th victory at the Cheltenham festival for Willie Mullins mare, who must surely now […]
San Felipe Stakes Presented by DK Horse (G2)
San Felipe Stakes Presented by DK Horse (G2) Bob Baffert won the 10th San Felipe Stakes of his career on Saturday evening at Santa Anita, but not with the horse that the market expected. Brant was the talking horse from the Baffert barn coming into the race and he was supported into 2.25 favouritism at […]
Cheltenham Festival Data Clues 2026
Cheltenham Festival Data Clues 2026 The initial plan was for this to be a “horses to follow” piece and I will be adding some tips from the data on this blog in the next week, but the more I worked on the research and looked through the data, the more angles I found that I […]
Rebel’s Romance
Dubai City of Gold (G2) This is a very easy job on certain days. Sometimes you just look at the horses that need to be covered on the schedule and you know it will be an enjoyable watch. There are just a small handful of horses who can be considered to be genuinely 125+ performers […]
Coolmore Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2)
Coolmore Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) Commandment took his record to 3 wins from 4 races for Brad Cox when landing the Coolmore Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream on Saturday evening. He was a well supported favourite for the race and duly delivered for his supporters in relatively comfortable fashion, but was the race […]
‘Super Saturday’
Super Saturday Rebel’s Romance (William Buick) wins the Hardwicke Stakes at Ascot Racecourse 21.06.25 Photo © Francesca Altoft focusonracing.com As we begin to head towards the climax of the Dubai season, we have reached the Super Saturday card. This card gets underway with the G1 Al Maktoum Challenge for the Arabian breds followed by 8 […]
‘European Road To The Kentucky Derby’ Conditions Stakes
‘European Road To The Kentucky Derby’ Conditions Stakes Charlie Appleby and Godolphin have won this race with both Notable Speech (2024) and Opera Ballo (2025) and so Hidden Force had some lofty shoes to fill when he stepped out on to the polytrack at Kempton on Wednesday evening. He had been backed into Even money […]
Constitution Hill
Constitution Hill Constitution Hill and Oisin Murphy. Southwell 20-2-26 pic Tony Knapton focusonracing.com It seems that the entire racing fraternity has an opinion on Constitution Hill and what he should do next. I won’t be adding to that here and this will be a much shorter and scientific view of the race as a result. […]