Ever notice how pedigree experts can explain a success so as to make it seem inevitable – after the event. It’s a flim-flam in many ways, designed to disguise a more mundane reality which is that talent is mostly a genetic crap-shoot. But listen to enough of these experts over the next couple of weeks and you will wind up wondering what Dawn Approach is doing in the Derby at all. (more…)

Anyone think the world’s ideal? In particular, the racing world? Didn’t think so. In an ideal world, for instance, there would be no need for a debate about whether or not the Turf Club should be subsumed into HRI. Ideally it wouldn’t. But it’s only a matter of time before it is, and the result will be…probably nothing much different. (more…)

A momentous National Hunt campaign climaxes in style at Punchestown this week. It is Irish jump racing’s ultimate shop-window, a stage for the great and the good to show off their stuff to a wider audience. And come the weekend the focus will switch to the flat, which has no such shop-window at all, and really could do with one. (more…)

Political-Will is a buzz-phrase that can sum up a lot. Mostly it sums up the belief that things happen or don’t happen in direct proportion to the whims of those in authority. And there is no greater whim in Irish racing than prizemoney. (more…)

With Workforce not appearing, the cliché about Hamlet without the Prince will probably get a few outings before Sunday’s Irish Derby is run. But there’s a danger that Ireland’s greatest classic drama might also end up seeming like Gertrude, Laertes and his wet chick sister are also absent. (more…)