An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Few people enjoy the thrill of a winning punt more than me but there are times when betting becomes (almost) irrelevant. Tomorrow at 3.30 p.m. will be one of them. That’s when seven runners will line up for the Unibet Champion Hurdle, the first championship race of this week’s four-day Cheltenham Festival. I will be
With the start of the Cheltenham Festival just four days away, I am pleased to say that this column’s antepost book for the meeting is looking decidedly healthy. It can all go badly wrong, of course, over the space of four days but, for now at least, let’s live in hope. Over the past couple
Trainer Sandy Thomson has long had a knack of improving experienced horses that are moved to his yard. A combination of the healthy Scottish Borders air and a new regime have done wonders for several veteran chasers over the years, including Harry The Viking, Yorkhill and Dingo Dollar. The secret? ‘Individual care. It’s all about
Readers of a certain vintage might be familiar with the work of J.A. (Charles) Cuddon, a teacher at Emanuel School in London and author of the Macmillan Dictionary of Sport and Games, which ran to some two million words of mostly exquisite prose. This is how he started his entry on cricket: ‘Cricket is a
If there is one trainer I think might have a memorable Cheltenham for the ‘home team’ in the face of stiff competition from Ireland, it is Harry Fry. The Dorset handler looks as if he has kept some of his best horses fresh and well with the hope of landing a couple of big prizes
You don’t bounce so easily at 40 and last Thursday, after 25 years, it was one fall too many. Without fanfare or fuss, a fit Tom Scudamore quit the saddle. There will be days when he will miss the adrenaline-charge of driving a horse to victory in the shadow of the post, the thrill of
Friends Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero have made a flying start to their new training partnership this season. Both names are on the licence but they have different roles: Greenall is the face of the duo at the racetrack, entertaining owners including several from the many syndicates that are linked to the yard, while Guerriero
The first two rounds of the Six Nations have exploded across the sporting landscape insuperlative – draining displays of skill and power. But still the England Rugby Union team is as baffling as Fermat’s Last Theorem. Why is it that a nation with resources other countries can only dream of performs so fitfully? How come
I make no apologies for the fact that over the next month I will spend a lot of time looking forward to what I regard as Britain’s finest annual sporting event: the Cheltenham Festival. Yes, there will be groans from racegoers that Guinness is a rip-off at £7.50 a pint; yes, it can get overcrowded
On a cold Tuesday night, as the wind whipped in from the North Sea, I joined 220 hardy souls to watch a game of football. Less than a mile away from the Sizewell nuclear plant on the Suffolk coast but light years away from the lurid lights of the Premiership, Leiston FC were playing Ilkeston
One of the nicest parts about writing this weekly column for Spectator Life is the informed comments that greet it each week from readers. I am thinking specifically about people such as ‘Simian Leer’, ‘Oswald Grimes’ and ‘Simon’. This week my thanks go to ‘Simian’, who in late December highlighted the chances of NASSALAM in
If you think the Calcutta Cup is just any old rugby match between England and Scotland, then the latest in BT Sport’s fine series of documentaries should put you straight. It’s called The Grudge and is about the 1990 Calcutta Cup, the climax to the Five Nations with everything at stake for the first and
Many of my best bets over the years have been placed after watching replays of past races, looking out for horses that fared well despite bad luck in running. I have rewatched last year’s Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup Handicap Chase several times and there is no doubt that MISTER COFFEY was a desperately
Irish trainer John ‘Shark’ Hanlon recently asked whether he was mad to think his horse Hewick could win the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup. Since the colourful Irishman has never had a runner in the Gold Cup and since the horse in question cost around £800, there was almost certainly a resounding reply from both sides
Something is happening here, and you do know what it is, don’t you Mr Jones? Stargazers – and even some more grounded folk – reckon it’s written in the heavens: that the team Eddie Jones was supposed to have been coaching will meet the team he will be coaching in the rugby world cup final
Ground conditions at both Warwick and Kempton Park are likely to decide the winners of the two big weekend handicaps tomorrow. A month ago, clerks of the course and groundsmen up and down the country feared it might never rain again. Now it seems to pour almost every day and, as a result, it is
Whoever invented veterans’ chase handicaps – for horses aged ten and above – please take a bow. I love them and I have yet to come across anyone in the sport who doesn’t relish the prospect of these old warriors running against each other in their twilight racing years. Inevitably, horses of this age will
If you are ever at one of those dinner parties where the company is competing to slag off the iniquities of the British Empire, counter with the two words: ‘Corfu’ and ‘cricket’. Although never an actual colony (but rather a British protectorate), Corfu and the Corfiots are that rare thing – unashamedly Anglophile. There are
Norwich City are a likeable club, and currently run by a pleasant-seeming bloke called Allan Russell. He used to be the club’s ‘setpiece coach’, whose claim to fame was that he was working with the England squad in 2018 when they scored against the mighty Panama. Good for him, of course, but has football become
The Paddy Power New Year’s Day Handicap Chase at Cheltenham over more than two and a half miles on Sunday is a hugely competitive affair. There are no less than six horses in this race from my ‘horse tracker’ – horses that have caught my eye for one reason or another recently and that I expect to back in future.
When Lionel Messi won the World Cup for Argentina earlier this month, it not only filled the last hole in his trophy cabinet, it also seemed to end the debate over who was the greatest footballer of all time. Football fans have debated for years about whether Messi was equal to Pelé and Diego Maradona,
The Randox Grand National at Aintree is more than three months away but I can’t resist a couple of bets on the race now. At this stage, it is important to bet on a horse that is being targeted at the race but that will not go up in the ratings/weights significantly between now and
The likeable Joe Tizzard was a talented jockey and he is proving equally adept as a trainer. His father, Colin Tizzard, retired at the end of last season after a hugely successful training career so this is Tizzard Jnr’s first season with only his name on the licence. Tizzard has already trained 32 winners this
Few sights in the history of cricket have been more thrilling – or more terrifying for batsmen – than the great West Indian fast bowler Wes Hall coming in off his 30-yard run. He is now Sir Wesley, and frail at 85, but still as forthright and impressive as ever. I was privileged to be
The Coral Welsh Grand National is my favourite jumps race of the whole season, largely because I have enjoyed a good record in the race over the years. You need a strong stayer, a good jumper and a well-handicapped horse to win the race. Usually, you want a mud-lover too but that’s not guaranteed this time around because of the lack of
Welcome one and all to this new weekly column on horse racing. The industry is facing some challenging times – low prize money, small fields, rising costs for trainers/owners, a lack of cohesive leadership and more. But it is not all doom and gloom and Penworthy – the name derives from a character in P.G.
So should he stay or should he go? That’s Eddie ‘I don’t really care what other people think’ Jones, currently ruling the roost over England rugby at Twickenham. Though for how long is another matter. Clearly the language around Jones is changing: the announcement of a review of England’s dismal recent performances very clearly avoided
Michael Sheen has had a problem with the royal family for some time – and it’s only got worse since William was appointed Prince of Wales. The actor, best known for playing Tony Blair but somewhat to the left of him politically, has criticised the notion of an Englishman being nominal head of the principality.
When England play the USA this evening in Al Khor, Qatar, it will be the twelfth time the two sides have met. England have had the upper hand in most of the previous 11, winning eight and recording scores as comfortable as 10-0, 8-1, 6-3 and 5-0. We easily beat them 3-0 at Wembley just
