An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
It’s easy to be sceptical about top sportsmen turning to psychologists for help. A bit precious, no? After all, what’s wrong with the good old Fergie hairdryer treatment to unmuddle the thinking of some bewildered player? But when you hear Rory McIlroy extolling the virtues of the man who gets inside his cranium you start
Over the past few months, I’ve been training for the London Marathon, so most weekends I’ve been out running more than 20 miles at a stretch. I carry the usual bits to make these long slogs vaguely civilised – energy gels, a water bottle, a couple of fruit pastilles. They help, of course. But there’s one thing I absolutely cannot do without: music. Non-runners sometimes ask
The whole nature of the Randox Grand National (Aintree, tomorrow 4 p.m.) has changed significantly in recent years and it is not just about the fences becoming smaller and safer. A race that once favoured horses below 11 stone in the weights now favours the classier horses that are carrying more than 11 stone. Here
Ever since MONBEG GENIUS finished a close third in the Ultima Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival three years ago, it looked only a matter of time before he landed a big handicap. The form of that race could hardly have worked out better. The winner Corach Rambler, running off a rating of just 146
Like many good ideas, the London marathon was conceived over a drink in a pub. Inspired by their experience running the New York marathon in 1979, two British athletes met in the Dysart Arms, next to Richmond Park, to discuss staging a similar race in London. It became an iconic event and, such has been
It’s not the newest joke in the world, but worth a quick rerun right now after the latest in a stream of near-fatal road accidents. What’s the difference between a Range Rover and a golf ball? Tiger Woods can drive a golf ball straight for 300 yards. The extraordinary story of Woods’s decline is written
Next door to Jeremy Clarkson’s farm, behind spiked steel fencing and overlooked by edge-of-town bungalows, are the grounds of my daughter’s football team, the Chipping Norton Swifts Under-15 Girls. On cold, leaden Saturdays, I stand and watch. The clubhouse does cups of instant coffee for a pound but they take only cash. I don’t bring
The arrival of a new flat season is exciting but, for betting purposes, I prefer to stick to the jumps. On the flat in late March and April, it is so hard to know which trainers have their horses fit enough to do themselves justice and which do not. Since most handlers are still in
Life is riddled with things that impersonate something in a hideously disappointing way: the regret of Pepsi, the affront of the rail replacement bus and, for runners, the tedium of the treadmill. They are one of the most tiresome inventions to scar this planet, offering a mind-numbing bastardisation of one of life’s joys. I’m a
Trainer Ruth Jefferson is one of the many northern trainers supporting Kelso’s big fixture tomorrow, when the Scottish course hosts day two of the Racing Post Go North weekend. Last year her talented mare, Lavida Adiva won the Ladbrokes-sponsored Mares’ Hurdle at the meeting. Since then, that horse has gone on to greater things, finishing second earlier this month in the Pertemps Network Final
Flipping heck! Thank goodness the Cheltenham Festival only happens once a year. There’s only so much chaos and controversy my liver can take. But oh boy, did the 230,000 racegoers who turned up have some good craic. Although Willie Mullins swept the board in the big races, nine UK-based trainers got on the score sheet,
It certainly never happened to me when I was a lad – even after a particularly insightful essay on the causes of the English Civil War – but there’s a remarkable TikTok film purportedly showing Max Dowman, the Arsenal boy wonder, arriving at school on Monday (don’t forget he’s still only 16), and being applauded
It’s surprising that champion jumps jockey Sean Bowen is still looking for his first winner at the Cheltenham Festival and so it would be fitting if he rode it for his former babysitter, trainer Rebecca Curtis, in today’s Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup (4 p.m.) The Grade 1 race over more than three miles and two
Humiliated, disparaged and the object of global scorn for their lily-livered incompetence. But enough about the England rugby team. Last week was also deeply embarrassing for Sir Keir Starmer and his government. As President Donald Trump said of Britain’s Prime Minister: ‘This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with.’ One might say something similar about Steve Borthwick, England’s head
Wiltshire trainer Emma Lavelle knows what it takes to land the Grade 1 Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle having won it seven years ago. Her pride and joy, Paisley Park, then aged seven, went off the 11-8 favourite in March 2019 having already won all four previous starts that season. MA SHANTOU, also trained by Lavelle, has a similar profile to Paisley Park except he has won only three of his
Irish maestro Willie Mullins runs a duo of talented two-mile chasers today in the BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase (4 p.m.), the highlight of day two of the Cheltenham Festival. However, both Majborough and Il Etait Temps have displayed jumping frailties and so neither appeals at their respective odds. The former will almost certainly win if he jumps as well as he did last time out when landing the Grade 1 Ladbrokes Dublin Chase
The decision by connections to run Lossiemouth in today’s Unibet Champion Hurdle (4 p.m.), rather than the Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle on Thursday, is good for racing but not ideal for my two ante-post bets in the big race, the highlight of day one of the Cheltenham Festival. Irish trainer Willie Mullins’ talented mare is unbeaten in her three visits
Mondo Man and Wreckless Eric head the market for tomorrow’s big race at Sandown, the Betfair Imperial Cup Handicap Hurdle (2.27 p.m.), and a good case can be made for each of them landing the spoils. Mondo Man, trained by the father and son Moore team, is well handicapped over hurdles based on his flat
There’s something ineffably endearing about Harry Kane (though I am sure plenty of Bundesliga defenders would disagree), a sort of old-fashioned Englishness that was apparent in Captain Mainwaring. But unlike Mainwaring, he clearly gets on well with Germans. Even more important, he combines an apparent guilelessness with a canny understanding of how to do his
What better way to limber up for the Cheltenham festival than lunch with Richard Phillips? Thirty years ago, Richard was heralded as the next big thing. From his yard in Adlestrop, he trained his first Cheltenham winner, La Landiere, in the Cathcart Chase in 2003. He also won big races with Noble Lord, Time Won’t
Kelso’s hurdles course is a specialist track – left-handed, sharp and undulating. Some horses handle it well, others do not. Cracking Rhapsody most definitely falls into the former category because tomorrow he will try to win the bet365 Morebattle Hurdle (2.55 p.m.) for the third year in a row. His form this season is modest
An avalanche in the French Alps claimed the lives of two skiers this week. In total, 30 skiers have lost their lives in one of the most deadly Alpine winters in memory. Like the majority of victims this season in France, the skiers had ignored avalanche warnings and ventured off-piste. Among the fatalities are two British skiers who were caught in
The last two winners of the Virgin Bet Daily Extra Places Eider Handicap will try to win the race for a second time at Newcastle tomorrow (2:43 p.m.). Knockanore, who has showed little since his win twelve months ago, and Anglers Crag, who has switched stables since his win in 2024, both have strong chances of
Wales rugby coach Steve Tandy must have the most difficult job in sport, apart maybe from Jim Ratcliffe’s public–relations whizz. In a Churchillian moment, Tandy has called for national unity after Wales were humiliated by a sublime France in front of their lowest Six Nations home crowd in Cardiff. But here is a simpler solution.
You can always judge a country by the reception you get at passport control. America is aggressive. Don’t even think of answering ‘certainly not’ when asked if you packed your own suitcase. But when I arrived in Saudi Arabia last week, I was greeted by the most friendly, charming man, even though he was an
My family skied a lot. We did it home-style, with packed lunches and Mars Bars on the lifts, my brother and me following my expert Milan-raised father down terrifying drops of ice in the twilight. We took our chances on low or no visibility, scraping round mountainous moguls and – my least favourite – careering
There are at least three runners at Haydock tomorrow hoping to win the William Hill Half A Mill Grand National Trial Handicap Chase (3.15 p.m.) because victory would mean they have a much better chance of getting into the Randox Grand National on April 11. I am sweet on the chances of trainer Jamie Snowden’s LA
With more rain to come, the ground at Newbury tomorrow is going to be really testing for the William Hill Handicap Hurdle (3.20 p.m.). That will make the result more of a lottery because several of the horses at the top of the market would not ideally want it looking like a bog. Those preferring a sounder surface
My friend Tim Andrew has admirable priorities. When I told him I had tickets for this week’s Six Nations opener at the Stade de France, he texted back: ‘Final whistle to a restorative glass in the 6ième arr: 40 minutes. Can’t even get to the station at Twickenham in that time.’ That’s the attitude you
