Latest Blogs from Vincent Finegan and "My Racing Story"

Wed 26th Feb 2020

Enda Bolger

It is remarkable how much races like the Foxhunter Chase have changed over the years at Cheltenham and it’s great that you have the Cross-Country race now.

11.23AM

Mon 24th Feb 2020

It's A Whip

Last week British racing announced its Horse Welfare Board's 130 document titled 'A Life Worth Living.' It has been described as a pivotal moment for the sport as it takes the initiative in proposing a welfare strategy to counter any public concerns about animal cruelty. In terms of language and ambition it's hard to fault. That's the easy part. Implementing it is a different matter.

9.11AM

Joe Foley

I am very excited to be co-sponsoring the €200,000 Irish EBF Ballyhane Stakes, a six-furlong race for two-year-olds by an EBF-registered sire whose median price is no more than €75,000. It will be run at Naas on Monday, August 3rd, which is a bank holiday and is the Racecourse of the Year’s richest race.

12.19PM

Mon 17th Feb 2020

The Need For Seed

Lots of pearl-clutching is going on in racing at any prospect of a future Sinn Fein led government. This seems primarily due to a statement issued in 2017 where the party called for an end to state support of the Horse & Greyhound Fund until reform of governance and regulation was implemented within the two sectors. Perhaps inevitably over the last week that's been racing's specific focus rather more than broader questions as to how a quarter of voters in this state voted to put apologists for killers into power.

8.53AM

Fri 14th Feb 2020

Johnny Barry

It was almost as if the stars aligned that I would ride my 150th point-to-point winner on Arctic Skipper at the Tallow Point-To-Point, which is run on Jimmy Mangan’s land next door to my home place.

12.33PM

Mon 10th Feb 2020

'What If'

Here's a hypothetical scenario: forty minutes after the most underwhelming Champion Hurdle of modern times, Honeysuckle wins the Mares Hurdle in a canter. It's hardly an outrageous hypothesis, especially if Benie Des Dieux runs in the Stayers. No doubt the Honeysuckle camp will argue a win's a win. But even they might privately admit the consequence would be a sense of 'What If.'

8.41AM

Thu 6th Feb 2020

Barry Browne

I didn’t ride a winner at Leopardstown over the Dublin Racing Festival but I got two great spins, finishing third in the Grade 1 ERSG Arkle Novice Chase on Gallant John Joe and second in the €100,000 William Fry Handicap Hurdle on The Jam Man.

8.10PM

Mon 3rd Feb 2020

Endgame

David Dunne could be the answer to a potential future quiz question about which trainer saddled a 100-1 winner two days before having his licence suspended. Dunne starts a four month suspension in March on the back an Appeals body decision last week. It appears to be the end of the saga of how his charge, Druim Samhraidh, tested positive for an anabolic steroid after winning at Ballinrobe in August. But questions surely remain around how this endgame was reached.

8.37AM

Fri 31st Jan 2020

Jack Cantillon

Syndicates Racing is a new venture but we have already experienced a wide gamut of emotions in a short space of time, the build-up to the weekend’s Dublin Racing Festival being a case in point.

1.14PM

Mon 27th Jan 2020

Overloaded

Offering too much at one time can backfire. Just ask the Labour party after last month's UK election where a manifesto containing superabundant promises simply overloaded voters. It's a stretch from that to the Dublin Racing Festival. But not so much that fears about Irish jump racing's shop-window event offering too much of a good thing at one time aren't plausible.

9.17AM

Wed 22nd Jan 2020

Tommy Brett

It was a great relief to return to the winner’s enclosure last week after a long absence, thanks to Grey Habit for Paddy Meany in the Your Clubs Fundraise @ fairyhouse.ie Enquire Today Handicap Hurdle.

2.46PM

Mon 20th Jan 2020

Saudi Cup 'Sportswashing'

'Sportswashing' is an evocative term. Technically it is hosting a sporting event in order for a county to improve its reputation, particularly if it has a poor human rights record. Saudi Arabia has been exercising such soft power with a vengeance in recent years. Next month's Saudi Cup is part of this strategy. So it represents something of a sporting dilemma.

8.40AM

Fri 17th Jan 2020

Philip Enright

Hitting the 30-winner mark on Sean Says for Rodger Sweeney at Punchestown on Wednesday was very pleasing, as it matched my previous best ever total. To do that with so much of the campaign left was great and hopefully I can build on that further by the end of the season at Punchestown.

9.29AM

Sun 12th Jan 2020

Doesn't Do Exactly What It Says On The Tin

There's often a gap between what racing says on the tin and what actually happens. For instance, officially, every horse must be ridden to achieve its best position. It's a nice theory. Another instance is how the preservation of public confidence in the sport as a betting medium is vital. Yet trainers and jockeys climbing into commercial bed with bookmakers has consistently been whitewashed as a harmless earner. It shows how this is no straightforward tin.

10.40PM

Wed 8th Jan 2020

Conor Brassil

It is very testing for a jockey when you have gone a long time without a winner and you have to be strong mentally to deal with it.

9.36AM

Mon 6th Jan 2020

A Forlorn Exercise

Racing's enduring efforts to persuade the public at large that they should be fascinated with the game is a recurring storyline. The broad thrust is usually that those either ignorant of, or impervious to, the sport's charms only need an 'Every Racing Moment' to become converts. But it's a tough pitch when even someone like Michael O'Leary admits a day at the races can be just plain boring.

8.23AM

Fri 3rd Jan 2020

Mouse Morris

I have never had a big operation at Everardsgrange, we don’t have the space to do it, so we haven’t done too badly over the years, winning the Gold Cup, Champion Chase and Stayers’ Hurdle at Cheltenham, the Aintree and Irish Grand Nationals and plenty of other top races.

2.56PM

Sun 29th Dec 2019

Ten Predictions For Decade Ahead

It's the season for predictions, not only 2020 but for the decade ahead. This is shaky ground. Even the truest Cassandra would have been stretched to come up with some of the outcomes from the last ten years. Hands up who in 2010 forecast Padraig Beggy becoming a Derby winning jockey? So here, complete with health warnings - and presuming Trump hasn't fried us all - are a few tentative racing prophecies for the coming decade with no responsibility whatsoever taken for the outcome.

10.30PM

Tue 24th Dec 2019

Kevin Brouder

It is unusual for three brothers with no background in racing or horses to end up being jockeys but that is how it is with Gearoid, Gavin and myself.

2.07PM

Mon 23rd Dec 2019

Rock & A Hard Place

Riddle me this: if you can't afford to build something but someone offers to spend almost ten times more to build the thing bigger and better with no strings attached you'd count your lucky stars, right? Horse Racing Ireland's plans for second all-weather circuit appear to be different. They've picked their own track at Tipperary but can't pay for it yet. So everything's on hold including, it seems, Luke Comer's offer to build a brand new facility at his Palmerstown Estate near Naas.

9.23AM

Thu 19th Dec 2019

Philip Rothwell

We have been on a nice little run in recent weeks, through the end of November and the start of December, and it is very welcome indeed to be on seven winners already for the season, having only managed two last term. It is six years since we recorded more than that, registering 17 in 2013-2014, so it is great.

10.45AM

Mon 16th Dec 2019

Putting The Cart Before The Horse

Later today the Horse Racing Ireland board meets to sign off on their 2020 budget. Industry stakeholders are awaiting details with some trepidation. Cuts seem to be inevitable given that state funding is unchanged at €67.2 million from last year. Where they occur may reveal more about Irish racing's actual priorities than any amount of official statements.

9.11AM

Fri 13th Dec 2019

Trevor Ryan

It was great to record a double at Tramore on Tuesday, just three weeks after getting my first. That brings me to eight winners for the season, which is my best tally to date and it's great to be getting some return after slaving away for very little for a long time.

2.39PM

Mon 9th Dec 2019

Having Your Cake & Eating It

There seem to be a lot of racing fans who aren't any kind of Christmas Grinch and yet are already dreading their St Stephens Day telly viewing. It says a lot about the ire that Racing TV's coverage of Punchestown in particular on Sunday has provoked with predictions of chaos when it comes to the prospect of the busiest day of the year later this month.

8.52AM

Fri 6th Dec 2019

Colm O'Connell

Un De Sceaux is so accustomed to his trips to Sandown, Ascot, Cheltenham and Auteuil that he could make the journey on his own at this stage. Of his 23 wins, 10 have been Grade 1s and he has won those Grade 1s at five different tracks.

1.08PM

Mon 2nd Dec 2019

A Little Fizzy

The connections of Honeysuckle and Envoi Allen can bask in the Grade One glory achieved at Fairyhouse for a little while longer before looking forward to a winter of incessant speculation about the Champion Hurdle. Both the unbeaten mare and the unbeaten novice are as low as 8-1 for hurdling's championship at Cheltenham in March. That's despite it being far from the first-choice festival option for either. Plenty are already arguing it should be.

8.23AM

Fri 29th Nov 2019

Matthew Smith

We have had some good fun this year already with One Cool Poet but it is very exciting now to have Ronald Pump competing in the Grade 1 Bar One Racing Drinmore Chase at Fairyhouse on Sunday. He’s ready to roll and in good form.

2.16PM

Mon 25th Nov 2019

Twisting By The Pool

The threat by on-course bookmakers to withdraw their services from tomorrow is a sure-fire attention grabber. It is a desperate attempt by the layers to concentrate official minds on the practical difficulties of a declining industry and maybe even try to help out a little bit. Much more significant in the long-term though is Horse Racing Ireland's confirmation that potentially selling all or part of Tote Ireland to private interests is among options being examined for the organisation.

8.51AM

Fri 22nd Nov 2019

Danny Mullins

I gave Saldier a good chance going into the race last weekend, but in a race of that level, you’d be foolish to be overconfident. You have to believe in yourself and the horse but it was a very good race. Going forward, it’s a nice feather in his cap but he’ll need to improve again.

4.51PM

Mon 18th Nov 2019

A Third Way

Here's an early New Year's Resolution that racing around the world might consider for 2020 when it comes to interference rules. Most major jurisdictions currently operate what are termed Category One rules. The exception is North America which uses Category Two regulations. Both sets are flawed. One produces an unfair result like this year's Kentucky Derby. The other leads to the absurd Prix Du Moulin outcome. It's time for a Third Way.

9.17AM

Fri 15th Nov 2019

Paul Hennessy

It is a pity that they have had so much rain in Cheltenham that they had to call off today’s racing but I have to say, I am not complaining about how soft the ground is getting generally because Heaven Help Us loves that.

12.13PM

Mon 11th Nov 2019

Foot-Dragging

In January 2012 Department of Agriculture inspectors raided Philip Fenton's stables and cured Irish racing of its drug-free delusions by finding banned animal medicines including anabolic steroids. Ensuring industry credibility by provision of a new anti-doping regime has supposedly been a priority almost ever since. That's almost eight years now. Still nothing is in place on the ground. It begs the question as to how much of a priority the fight against drugs actually is.

8.49AM

Thu 7th Nov 2019

Robbie Gallagher

It was a shock but a very pleasant one when my name was read out as winner of the Dedication to Racing & Breeding category at the Godolphin Stud and Stable Staff Awards last week. I was over the moon.

9.49PM

Mon 4th Nov 2019

Cosmopolitan

The Melbourne Cup has always been regarded as a sporting reflection of Australia and is likely to be so again in the early hours of tomorrow morning. It's famously the 'race that stops a nation.' But reports down under suggest national disquiet over racing in general is expanding to an extent that warns everywhere else of the dangers of failing to look in the mirror and examining its public reflection.

9.17AM

Fri 1st Nov 2019

Oisín Orr

The race to be champion apprentice is going down to the wire but I can assure you I’m not getting stressed about it at all. There’s no point. It won’t get you anywhere.

2.19PM

Mon 28th Oct 2019

Attention Seeking

Attention is great when it's positive, not so much when it's negative. For instance the Coolmore Stud partnership is supposedly wary of publicity. That's not true. It's just bad publicity they don't like. Events, dear boy, do, however, have a habit of dictating what kind you get. The Breeders Cup is designed to attract attention to the sport in the US. But the 36th renewal this week will be the most fraught ever because such notice could turn out to be good or very bad indeed.

8.57AM

Fri 25th Oct 2019

Andrew Slattery

It is hard to believe that we are almost at the end of the flat season, with just a handful of fixtures left.

9.14AM

Mon 21st Oct 2019

Back To The Future

Time was when this part of the world smugly dismissed day to day racing in the US, France and elsewhere as soulless betting fodder, characterising it as an unseemly rush to the bottom with programmes full of bad horses run in front of paltry crowds that might as well be playing the slots. Such complacency already looks misplaced. Times to come could see it seem even more so.

9.38AM

Fri 18th Oct 2019

Denis Hogan

It is all systems go for Make A Challenge to have a go at Group 1 honours in the Qipco British Champion Sprint at Ascot tomorrow. The 40 grand supplementary fee has been paid up so we kind of have to go now!

1.13PM

Mon 14th Oct 2019

Smorgasbord

There appears to be disgruntlement within racing at how the industry's state allocation remains unchanged at €67.2 million after last week's 2020 budget. Given the fraught political context of Brexit it might be argued that no change was a good outcome but one thing Irish racing is rarely short of is entitlement. There's even a suggestion the government might have dropped the ball on not giving one of those five year strategic fund guarantees of old rather than maintaining an annual review. To which one can only say there's no harm in asking: all they can say is no.

9.25AM

Wed 9th Oct 2019

Shane Foley

It would have been hard to call the season disappointing after the amount of winners we had but there definitely would have been a tinge of disappointment had the boss, Jessie Harrington, and I not managed to round off all those two-year-old fillies’ winners especially with a Group 1.

1.09PM

Mon 7th Oct 2019

'Allez France'

If nothing else comes out of yesterday's Arc can it be the putting out to grass of that phrase about a good horse going on any ground. Any horse can go on any ground. It's the velocity at which they go that counts. Enable came up short in her hat-trick attempt simply because of the extreme conditions. They used to be common for the Arc and the odds were they were due. The odds also were that even a supremely versatile talent like Enable would struggle to properly go on them.

9.11AM

Fri 4th Oct 2019

Shane Crosse

To ride two group winners last weekend was deadly. Unreal. You can’t dwell on it too much as you have to kick on again for the next day but to get those opportunities and experience that as an 18-year-old apprentice is almost unbelievable.

10.40AM

Mon 30th Sep 2019

Potential Paris Party Pooper

If the idea of Enable pulling off an unprecedented Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe hat-trick can't float your boat then the good ship Romance is scuttled on a very dry beach. Sunday's race at Longchamp promises history. The best horse in the world is odds on to once again win Europe's greatest race. It's perfectly set up for a superb seasonal crescendo. Which is usually when things start to leak.

8.40AM

Fri 27th Sep 2019

Andy Slattery

It has been another good year for us in terms of winners and prizemoney, and to have my son Andrew and nephew Ben Coen thriving as jockeys has been a big part of that.

12.28PM

Mon 23rd Sep 2019

Emperor's New Clothes

Mark Johnston recently made a point that's crucial to the issue of how relevant prizemoney actually is to owners. He said that given a choice of getting two grand for winning a race, or four grand for finishing second, most any owner will opt for the win. It's an Emperor's new clothes observation that's impossible to argue with.

8.48AM

Fri 20th Sep 2019

Matthew Smith

It is a slow, long haul but this season has been our most successful to date, the string is the biggest we have had and we have had more winners than ever before. Once you’re moving in an upward direction you can’t complain, even if you’d love it to happen more quickly maybe.

1.53PM

Mon 16th Sep 2019

Class Wins Out

Racing showed its best side to the world at the Curragh on Sunday and it had nothing to do with the 'Irish Champions Weekend' action. The money-raising effort around Pat Smullen's Champions For Cancer Trials event was carried out with a style synonymous with the man at the centre of it. The only bum note was AP McCoy's after his ill-advised attempt at a flying dismount! Nevertheless, on a notable championship occasion it was this singular event that exuded class.

8.55AM

Fri 13th Sep 2019

Chris Hayes

It has been a good week for me at the Harvest Festival in Listowel and it could get even better if Madhmoon can win the Qipco Irish Champion Stakes tomorrow. And sure you’re always greedy in this game and I will be trying hard to add to my classic CV, and win a second Irish St Leger with Search For a Song on Sunday

1.30PM

Mon 9th Sep 2019

The Big Sell

Japan's absence from the Irish Champion Stakes robs the 'Irish Champions Weekend' feature of some star power. Europe's top star Enable was never going to Leopardstown. Now her greatest three year old rival doesn't look like doing so either. The French Derby hero Sottsass isn't coming, nor it appears are any of Timeform's top ten rated older European horses. It leaves Magical as favourite. Admirable as she is her main claim to fame has been as Enable's punch-bag. So a race that has to be judged by the highest standards has a second-division feel this time.

8.50AM

Latest Blogs from Vincent Finegan and "My Racing Story"

Enda Bolger

It's A Whip

Joe Foley

The Need For Seed

Johnny Barry

'What If'

Barry Browne

Endgame

Jack Cantillon

Overloaded

Tommy Brett

Saudi Cup 'Sportswashing'

Philip Enright

Doesn't Do Exactly What It Says On The Tin

Conor Brassil

A Forlorn Exercise

Mouse Morris

Ten Predictions For Decade Ahead

Kevin Brouder

Rock & A Hard Place

Philip Rothwell

Putting The Cart Before The Horse

Trevor Ryan

Having Your Cake & Eating It

Colm O'Connell

A Little Fizzy

Matthew Smith

Twisting By The Pool

Danny Mullins

A Third Way

Paul Hennessy

Foot-Dragging

Robbie Gallagher

Cosmopolitan

Oisín Orr

Attention Seeking

Andrew Slattery

Back To The Future

Denis Hogan

Smorgasbord

Shane Foley

'Allez France'

Shane Crosse

Potential Paris Party Pooper

Andy Slattery

Emperor's New Clothes

Matthew Smith

Class Wins Out

Chris Hayes

The Big Sell

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