Spectator Life

Today, I go to Ascot. The last time I darkened the turf of the Royal Enclosure was in 2017, when I was heavily pregnant with my first daughter. In the photograph of my husband and me that day, I resemble a whale with a plate attached to its head, while my husband looks as if he might at any moment burst into flames from wearing tails and top hat in a heatwave. As you can imagine, we both look rather cross. Curiously, though, on the edge of the photo, there appears to be another couple posing for the camera who look to be having a brilliant time. The gentleman is wearing a cravat of some sort, no tails or topper, while his lady love sports a pink minidress.

Royal Ascot gets me more excited than the weekend racing fare so I am going to put up four horses who could well go off shorter when they line up for their respective targets next week. First up in RASHABAR in the Group 1 St James's Palace Stakes on Tuesday (4.20 p.m.). Brian Meehan’s three-year-old colt caused an upset at this meeting a year ago when landing the Coventry Stakes at odds of no less than 80-1. Admittedly, next week he has to take on arguably the best horse in training in the form of Field of Gold but this race might just cut up to less than eight runners by the off, in which case the current three places would be attractive.

The unsettled weather forecast coupled with the number of leading horses who are untried at the distance of tomorrow’s Betfred Derby (3.30 p.m.) have increased the chances of a surprise result. The form of Ruling Court is rock solid but his victory in the Betfred 2000 Guineas at Newmarket came on good ground and over a trip of just a mile. Tomorrow’s contest over Epsom’s twists and turns will be over a mile and a half and it will be on much softer going than at racing’s headquarters more than a month ago. Ruling Court’s style of running and his breeding give every indication that he will stay 10 furlongs but 12 furlongs on ground with some cut could be another matter so odds of no bigger than 9-2 do not appeal.

Jockey Kieran Shoemark and trainer Charlie Fellowes are two talented men who deserve a change of fortune. Shoemark lost his job as first jockey to John and Thady Gosden after being blamed for Field of Gold’s narrow defeat in the Betfred 2000 Guineas at Newmarket four weeks ago. Shoemark then rode Fellowes’ filly Shes Perfect to victory in the French 1000 Guineas at Longchamp, only for the three-year-old filly to be demoted from first to second for interference. To add insult to injury, the decision was appealed and despite evidence from both men that they had been hard done by, they failed to get the result overturned. On Sunday, Fellowes and Shoemark will return to France, this time to Chantilly, for the Qatar Prix du Jockey Club, or French Derby (3.05 p.m.

Astute Scottish trainer Jim Goldie cannot hide his admiration for his five-year-old sprinter AMERICAN AFFAIR, who runs at Haydock tomorrow in the Group 2 Betfred Temple Stakes (3.30 p.m.). Goldie knows a thing or two about decent speedsters having trained the likes of Jack Dexter and Hawkeyethenoo in recent years – the former, in fact, finished second in the Temple Stakes a decade ago. The veteran handler said this week that American Affair was ‘very exciting’ and up there with the best sprinters he had trained which is why Goldie has given his stable star an entry in the King Charles III Stakes at Royal Ascot next month. American Affair has won two 5 furlong handicaps already this year, most recently at York off an official rating of 98.

Cyclists. I’ve become a tolerant cove in my old age but if there’s one word certain to raise my dander, it’s cyclists. In Brighton they think they own the place, enabled by successive stupid councils, who have spent tens of thousands of pounds on cycle lanes and those eyesore e-bikes all over town. With a murderous version of droit de seigneur – at odds with their right-on, self-righteous self-image – cyclists appear to believe that walkers are a lower order who they are free to run over as they please. Cyclists in Brighton seem particularly fond of riding on pavements, where the most damage can be done. It’s like they see pedestrians as targets in some sort of video game – ten points for a man, 20 for a woman, 50 for a child.

The form of the Virgin Bet-sponsored Scottish Sprint Cup at Musselburgh last month is rock solid. The winner, American Affair, and the runner-up, Jm Jungle, filled the same two places in a hotter race at York yesterday off their revised marks. Fifth at Musselburgh after being backed into 2-1 favourite was COVER UP trained by the father and son team of Simon and Ed Crisford. The five-year-old gelding was beaten less than three lengths but I am pretty sure he is better than that. The horse can be tricky at the start but tomorrow he will be in the safe hands of William Buick, who has won on him three times before, when he runs in the Hong Kong Jockey Club Handicap at Newbury (3.45 p.m.). The race, over six furlongs, has attracted 12 runners for a first prize of more than £38,000.

Trent Alexander-Arnold is a gifted footballer. Twice he has helped Liverpool become champions of England. He was also an important member of the team that became champions of Europe, and he has played 33 times at right back for England. Alexander-Arnold is still only 26. His race is nowhere near run. He has, one may safely say, power to add. And how did Liverpool supporters receive him when he came on as a second-half substitute against Arsenal over the weekend? Touched by the sun, thousands hooted their disapproval. The ‘Anfield faithful’, to borrow one of those sentimental phrases that come so easily to lazy scribes, let the player know that he could, in fact, walk alone. Charmers all.

Today's Ladbrokes Chester Cup (3.05 p.m.), run over a distance of more than two miles and two furlongs, is an intriguing affair with 15 runners competing for a first prize of more than £86,000. The best handicapped horse on the basis of his hurdles form is the likely favourite East India Dock, who was third in the Grade 1 JCB Triumph Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in March and can run off a lenient official flat mark of 89 today. The slight downsides to his chances are that he is untried at such a marathon trip as this on the flat and he has no experience of the unique twists and turns of Chester. East India Dock is the most likely winner of the race but at odds of 7-2 I am happy to look elsewhere.

Field of Gold is going to be hard to beat in tomorrow’s Betfred 2000 Guineas at Newmarket (3.35 p.m.). He was impressive when winning the Group 3 bet365 Craven Stakes over course and distance last month and, according to his joint trainer John Gosden, the horse was only ‘80 to 85 per cent’ fit for that race. However, his rating of 118 means he is not officially the best horse in the race – that honour goes to Shadow of Light. Field of Gold is the most likely winner of the race but odds of 7-4 make no appeal. After careful consideration, Godolphin’s stable jockey William Buick has decided not to ride Shadow of Light, the winner of both the Darley Dewhurst Stakes and the Juddmonte Middle Park Stakes, the two Grades 1s for two-year-olds at Newmarket last season.

The Dan Skelton versus Willie Mullins battle reaches its finale at Sandown tomorrow when one of these two brilliant trainers will be crowned Britain’s champion National Hunt trainer for the 2024-5 season. Skelton, who trains in Warwickshire, goes into the final two days of the season with a narrow lead over Mullins, who trains from his all-conquering Irish yard in Co. Carlow. However, with all the firepower at his disposal, it looks highly likely that Mullins will overtake Skelton’s prize money total tomorrow, given the latter’s lead is less than £60,000. For example, Mullins fields no less than ten runners in the bet365 Gold Cup Handicap Chase (4.10 p.m.), worth nearly £100,000 to the winner.

The weather is going to have a big bearing on the result of the BoyleSports Irish Grand National on Easter Monday. There is plenty of rain forecast between now and the off, and if that prediction is correct, the ground is going to be “soft”, or even “heavy”, by the off. I am loathe to desert Haiti Couleurs after he did this column a favour winning at the Cheltenham Festival: put up at 8-1, Rebecca Curtis’s game gelding won the Princess Royal National Hunt Challenge Cup Novices' Handicap Chase at 7-2 by a comfortable four and a half lengths. Haiti Couleurs is a magnificent, precise jumper and seems to go on all ground conditions but he must race off a 6 lbs higher official mark at Fairyhouse on Monday (5 p.m.).

Boris Johnson didn't like Adolescence. In his Daily Mail column last week he acknowledged the fine acting of the most talked-about television programme of the year, but still concluded that it was ‘tosh’. The problem, he felt, was that it wasn't based on a real-life crime, which somehow lessens its worth as a lesson for our times in the eyes of the former Prime Minister. I'm not sure his logic fully holds up to scrutiny (nor, for that matter, does Keir Starmer's plan to show Adolescence in schools). But if it is real-life drama that Boris wants then Netflix, with impeccable timing, this week released another one of those sports documentaries at which they have become rather adept.

Tomorrow’s Coral Scottish Grand National (3.35 p.m.) has attracted a field of 23 runners with a pot of more than £112,000 to the connections of the winner. Irish trainer Willie Mullins, fresh from his stunning achievements at Aintree last weekend, has six runners in the race as he tries to become champion trainer in Britain for a second successive year. It's impossible to rule out another Mullins victory but the bookies are running scared of his horses and the forecast favourite, Chosen Witness, looks to be particularly poor value. I have put up two horses for the race with mixed fortunes so far. Magna Sam, suggested each way at 50-1, is running and is now a top-priced 20-1.

Tomorrow’s Randox Grand National (4 p.m.), the world’s most famous horse race, is the highlight of an excellent card at Aintree and I think the bookies have got it right with the horses they have put at the top of the market. Stumptown, who could yet go off as favourite, is the best weighted horse in the race given that he would be given several pounds more if the handicapper was allowed to take his recent Cheltenham Festival win into consideration. His victory by seven lengths in the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase came, however, after the weights were published and this is a race in which there are no winning penalties.

How do you walk away from greatness? How do you vacate the position of being literally the best person in the world at something? Most of us never have to face this challenge, but at some point Ronnie O’Sullivan will. In Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry he has contrasting examples of how to tackle it. I’d argue that Davis’s approach is by far the better – and indeed teaches all of us about life and the way it should be lived. ‘If he plays his best, he wins. It’s as simple as that.’ There aren’t many who disagree with Hendry’s verdict on O’Sullivan, his successor as the king of snooker and the greatest player, by common consent, ever to pick up a cue.

A small but perfectly formed training outfit from Gloucestershire has quietly been making ripples, bordering on waves, with its horses in recent weeks – and there is plenty to look forward to for the rest of the season too. David Killahena and Graeme McPherson, who hold a joint licence to train at Stow-on-the Wold, sent just one horse to the Cheltenham Festival earlier this month and Yellow Car ran a cracker to finish fourth in the Grade 1, 20-runner Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle over three miles. ‘I bought him as a cheap and cheerful three-year-old to have a bit of fun with and for two years he showed nothing at home,’ McPherson told me. ‘But then I ran him in a point to point and the jockey got off and said, “He’s all right”.

It is ten years since Sepp Blatter finally lost control of football’s world governing body, Fifa. But despite his retirement and advanced years – he has just celebrated his 89th birthday – Blatter has not been able to bow out quietly. In a few days, on Tuesday, Blatter will be in court, in Basel, in his native Switzerland, to hear verdicts on allegations of fraud. Last month, Blatter spoke to protest his innocence in this case: ‘When you talk about falsehoods, lies and deception, that’s not me… That didn’t exist in my whole life.’ However, this picture of purity is one few football fans would recognise. Because Blatter is a villain of the old school, an inveterate chancer, an oleaginous schemer, a proper wrong ’un.