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Admin I think there is still a bit of a problem on the site. There were quite a few post disappeared.

I have to own up to being very lazy and that I have lifted the following from the Racing Post, but those in denial need to smell the coffee. I am not sure that any of my personal gripes and solutions ...

There was a very telling article in today's Racing Post about the continuing fall in race course attendance. I find it quite shocking that the average attendance in the first half of the year was as l ...

The July Cup has completely convinced me that the standards of our bloodstock are falling fast, and it is in the sprint divisions that the fall is most noticeable. The winner of the July Cup was Mill ...

In light of recent results I think it would be appropriate to have another look at Gleneagles. He is the sire of the July Cup winner Mill Stream, and of Ambiente Friendly runner up in the Derby. I had ...

The reaction to City of Troy's hard fought victory in Saturdays Eclipse is IMO a bit too negative. Clearly he did not relish the ground conditions. Sandown is a horrible track when it gets soft. For m ...

The week after Ascot is always a week when you look back at the performances and try to put them into some sort of meaningful context. I have been playing back the races over and over and there is one ...

The current CEO for the BHA has announced she is leaving at the end of the year. Thank goodness! The new CEO will have an even harder job to get the sport into some sort of sustainable condition. Firs ...

I didn't like him much, he appeared to be a mudlark and was very inconsistent, when things were in his favour he was smart but he ran a few really bad races. His pedigree looks OK on most platforms I ...

Premier Racing is dead. Just as predicted the outdated policy has not exactly worked as the BHA had expected. Crowds are still well down on last year and the future of racing in the UK is looking incr ...

I went to look at a potential mare at the sales today. She was by No Nay Never out of a Galileo mare. Nice enough, but quite small and very light framed and turned out on both fore. To me she was ALL ...

I am going to revisit a recent post on inbreeding, but with a caveat. I am using my definition of the coefficient of inbreeding, nothing else. I am going to get very grumpy if this starts to turn in t ...

It’s a horrible wet and not so warm day here so I am confined to the office for the morning at least. I was thinking about inbreeding and how inbreeding to some horses appears to be very negative ye ...

Anyone been through the catalogue? I have been through at least 3 times and I have only a very short list of possible lots. My process is fairly strict but I would normally have double what I have so ...

At Ascot on saturday the going was not bad and it was a cold but reasonable winters day. 7 races 38 runners including the one that didn't start, about 200K in prizes. 5.5 runners per race average how ...

I am astonished that the Racing Post these days hardly ever challenges the BHA or the ex BHA chiefs. This weeks Front Page podcast is a prime example. They seem unable or unwilling to say this is wron ...

I noticed in an article in the Racing Post that former BHA Chief Executive Nick Rust was calling for ‘Bold Change’ to be made in order to turn British Racing around. He warned that the current cha ...

Well here we go again, its mid October and this weekend its Champions Day at Ascot. The going early this week at Ascot was Soft. We are expecting a serious amount of rain tonight and tomorrow, some es ...

St Leger winner Continuous (Hearts Cry ex Fluff x Galileo) has a pretty classy pedigree, and an interesting one too.
His sire Hearts Cry (Sunday Silence) was a high level performer in Japan and trave ...

Don’t you all think its about time that race distances were run and published over proper distances. Ever since the BHA or whoever was administering racing decided to make the racecourses re measure ...

I saw a headline on the Racing Post website today 'How to make the Shergar Cup Pay', obviously some know it all pundit with a tipping service. More pressing however is 'How to make the Shergar Cup INT ...

What an impressive performance from City of Troy in the G2 Superlative Stakes at Newmarket yesterday. His demeanour was just a little 'spooky' he was completely unfazed by everything about him and the ...

What a very good performance yesterday from a progressive horse that looks to be going into the very top grade soon. He is an extremely attractive horse too he looks a lot like Sea The Stars (his dam ...

The performance that has impressed me the most so far is that of Mostahdaf, (Frankel ex Handassa). Firstly the race was very solid the runners were relatively closely matched and 5 of the 6 runners we ...

Mawj was a good winner of the 1000 gns and she was picked out by RP 9 or 10 months ago so RESPECT. She had definitely been given the Dubai treatment and looked a completely different filly from last y ...

The supreme festival of Jump Racing is going to run on a bog again. The track have been watering all 3 courses for at least a month and now we have just had a lot of rain and snow with more forecast f ...

Is anyone here doing a dry January, in Newmarket everyone seems to be doing it and some are also going through February. Personally I think its starting to drag!

I am deeply disturbed by the fact that there is currently a meeting discussing the changes to the structure of racing. Why am I concerned? because in none of the preamble to the meeting about increasi ...

I am off to Italy for a few days and taking my Tattersalls catalogues along for some serious research. This year I am adding a new metric. For mares with progeny there is a very telling line in the en ...

Just something that took my eye from the Tattersalls August Sale Catalogue. A gelding that has been named Limited Ability. Last 3 starts 8/9 class 6 handicap at Yarmouth, 9/11 class 5 WFA Wolverhampto ...

Did anyone spot the crowd at Newmarket last week, I understand that on Saturday the crowd was down about 14% on pre covid levels. I think Ascot was down nearly 24% and even York was slightly down. Gen ...

In a recent paper comparing the breeze times of horses in the Breeze Up Sales over the past few years and the relationship between times and racing performance I was very surprised by one major statis ...

I have been very busy working through pedigrees for clients and as you all know I spend hours looking at statistics and numbers and trends and results and so on. I like to think I deal in facts but I ...

Can something be deeply depressing and at the same time a little bit uplifting. Well for us racing and breeding nutcases I think there is a positive answer. I have always kept my old copies of Pacemak ...

St Mark’s Basillica (Siyouni ex Cabaret x Galileo) is retired to stud. A G1 winning 2yo and a multiple G1 winning 3yo at distances up to 10 furlongs. He had a very high level of form winning 2 Frenc ...

Just back from my annual trip to Italy. The regulations mostly unnecessary and a real bore didn’t take the edge of the event it was so good to get away. I must be one of the most tested people in th ...

An interesting result from Woodbine on Sunday in the Grade 2 Dance Smartly stakes over 10 furlongs on Turf. The winner was a filly Mutamakina. She is by Nathaniel ex Joshua’s Princess by Danehill. W ...

Starman (Dutch Art ex Northern Star x Montjeu) winner of the July Cup has an unusual but also interesting pedigree. It is interesting on several levels. It is a really international pedigree and you c ...

I was catching up with the results from France over the weekend and noticed a nice winner by Ruler of The World in the Prix du Lys (G3). Ruler of The World is a horse I liked very much and one that I ...

Wonderful Tonight: another really good one out of a Montjeu mare. Looks like the mare has never gone off the owners stud and now there is little reason. The Vidal’s are pretty clued up breeders and ...

While we have just had a weekend of classic races and it is always unwise to interpret a ‘snapshot’ of form too literally it does seem to indicate a couple of things that we have discussed on this ...

There was an interesting article in the Racing Post about Mac Swiney and how his genetic profile is CT and that his dam was a TT. I have no feelings about that. But it seems to be slightly at odds wit ...

Well the trials have just about all taken place and I have to confess that I am a bit underwhelmed by the quality of the field for this year’s Derby. The Dante is generally a fairly informative r ...

A few months ago we were discussing Montjeu both as a sire and as a broodmare sire, and the thing that got me interested in him is how often he is found in the pedigree of high class sprinters and mil ...

It was really pleasing to see Broome win this weekend. I always held a pretty good opinion of him. I have no idea how what we are led to believe is the most professional training organisation in Europ ...

Does anyone here have any experience with a mare who is not a particularly good mother. Do they get better as you breed from them or are they just going to be horrible to all their foals. If that is t ...

I was at it with the numbers again the other day and I didn't realise just what I was looking at. I had to go back and check again and again. I arranged the 2020 runners in order from highest rating t ...

In 2005 the French authority changed the distance of their premiere staying classic from 2400 m to 2100 m. There was much discussion about the merits and consequences, and whether we in the UK and Ire ...

I am never surprised to find that whenever I look at a page of statistics, just plain numbers really, a whole collective of stories are revealed. Some interesting, some challenging and some just puzzl ...