Its back; the buzz-phrase of 2008 – team tactics, and yet again it appears to be circling around Aidan O’Brien, this time on the back of Ruler Of The World’s Derby victory, and how some of Ballydoyle’s five-strong team raced from the front at Epsom, dictating a funereal early pace that supposedly contributed to Dawn Approach going ‘tonto.’ It’s an interesting conspiracy theory, but interesting and accurate ain’t the same thing. (more…)

Punters usually need little excuse to feel hard-done-by. Often they have reason. And sometimes they don’t. Champion jockey Davy Russell catches his fair share of punter flak and his odds-on defeat on Midnight Game in a three-horse race at Navan at the weekend generated more on the basis he was too quiet on the horse. Which just shows how appearances can be deceptive. (more…)

A fourth place is Sir Des Champs’ worst placing in nine starts so far for Willie Mullins but that Lexus Chase run is the one that confirms him a genuine Cheltenham Gold Cup contender and maybe destined to become just the fourth Irish trained horse in over quarter of a century to win the most important steeplechase of all. (more…)

Weekend reports that Joe Keeling is expected to be confirmed as Denis Brosnan’s successor as HRI chairman may not quite have been greeted with cries of ‘Joe Who’ but it does seem to be a choice from left-field, so much so that more than one insider queried this space as to whether an eye has been taken off the ball down Tipperary way. (more…)

Funny how it’s always France: first Fallon, now it looks like Dettori. There was Dean Gallagher too. Maybe it’s just coincidence, maybe. A peep at the testing regime here and in Britain might be no harm. But right now the focus is resolutely on Frankie and France-Galop. (more…)

Just as a Guineas winner is often dismissed as having too much speed to last the Derby, there is a school of belief that Flemenstar’s spectacular return to action over two miles at Navan indicates he can’t possibly possess the stamina required to win a Cheltenham Gold Cup: to which one can only reply that if his stamina was already proven, he’d be too slow for steeplechasing’s blue-riband! (more…)

There is nothing like a losing docket to make a punter believe in “no-try” conspiracies. There are after all occasions when it is a case of “can’t try” rather than “won’t try.” But anyone who believes every dubious case can be dismissed as a talking-through-the-pocket job is being naïve in the extreme. (more…)