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…)

The success of the Galway festival in attracting massive crowds is really the definitive proof of how quality on the track doesn’t reflect in numbers in the stands. But it will still be interesting to see the crowd patterns during the course of Leopardstown this week. (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…)

An acquaintance who gets into a sweat about ratings and the pattern and such like opined at the weekend that calling the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle a top class race because it is “Grade 1” is like calling Sligo Rovers top class because the word “Premier” is in the League of Ireland title. Which is very unfair – on the Hatton’s Grace. (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…)

Dettori and Coolmore: not only is it intriguing, it’s also understandable. Camelot mightn’t have won the Arc but the sounds of satisfaction in Tipperary at having rubbed Godolphin’s eye in it by nicking their jockey for the day will nevertheless have reverberated all the way to Dubai. Most of all, though, the idea of Dettori and Coolmore makes sense. (more…)

It will be fascinating if Camelot is given a green light to run in Sunday’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe but not fascinating enough to shake the conviction that Nathaniel increasingly looks the one with the best credentials for success in Europe’s most prestigious race. (more…)

The old gag about women demanding equality with men being short of ambition came to mind during Listowel’s Ladies Day when the fairer sex proved yet again that what they say really does go. (more…)

Hindsight is an exact science, which makes it dirty pool to employ it too rigorously on such an inexact pursuit as racing. But even so there appear to be an awful lot of after-the-race merchants willing to put Joseph O’Brien’s Camelot ride in the Leger under the microscope and come up with a negative verdict. And you have to ask why? (more…)

They get enough flak when getting it wrong so the least the Leopardstown stewards deserve is a ‘thumbs-up’ for getting it right when the pressure was on in the Matron Stakes. (more…)

Show mightn’t beat substance but anyone who doubts the importance of how things appear – and especially in racing – got a sharp reminder with the Aga Khan’s axing of Johnny Murtagh. In fact the more you examine the story, the less surprising the move becomes. (more…)

The more you examine Camelot’s reputation, the easier it is to argue he is the best of a particularly bad lot of three year olds, and that, rather like a carefully cultivated boxer, his success is a tribute to some extremely good management. (more…)

Wednesday’s Juddmonte International at York is not run over a mile and a quarter but a mile and a quarter and eighty eight yards. It sounds a finicky distinction but with Frankel tackling a distance over a mile for the first time it might yet become very relevant indeed. (more…)