An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Ascot racecourse missed most of the rain that fell this week and, as a result, the ground will now almost certainly be on the fast side of good for tomorrow’s big race, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes (4.10 p.m.). Despite a first prize of more than £850,000 for winning connections, just five
This weekend’s racing does not get me excited from a betting point of view so instead I am going to put up three ante-post bets at big odds. These horses should give those who follow my tips an interest, hopefully even a profit, at some of the bigger meetings over the coming month. I can’t
The tub-thumping atmosphere in the Long Room at Lord’s was so raucous late on Monday afternoon as India and England fought out the tightest of Test matches that it made a Millwall home game against West Ham seem like the Albert Hall. So a great triumph for Test cricket, yes? Well, up to a point.
The only political party with a serious chance of winning office I will ever vote for again is the one which acknowledges that in all probability and at least for a while it will increase taxes. Every party piles up promises that they will be the ones to get Britain working again. But building power
The clue is in his appearance. The sandy-haired, blue-eyed, 6ft 2in star Jannik Sinner is the world’s No. 1 tennis champion and has just clinched his – and Italy’s – first win in the world-famous Wimbledon tournament. Sinner, the new hero of tennis after his victory over the previous reigning Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz, may
It is so-called ‘Super Saturday’ tomorrow with a host of great racing from Newmarket, York and Ascot. The fast ground, which follows yet another week of fine weather, has reduced the anticipated size of some of the handicap fields but there is still a host of competitive racing at the three tracks. Before I turn
Strangely, it was the Sunday Telegraph, not the red tops, that in 2002 coined the acronym Wags after staff in a Dubai hotel used it to describe the wives and girlfriends of England football players. Little did they know that the term would have the traction that it still does nearly 25 years later. Of
The evidence was clear, the official had dropped a clanger. At 4-4 in the first set of the women’s match at Wimbledon last Sunday, the British player Sonay Kartal should have had her serve broken when she hit a backhand long. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova saw the ball land well out of court, as did those watching
I am pretty sure that MINSTREL KNIGHT is a well-handicapped horse off an official rating of 87. However, there is no doubt that he is a better horse with cut in the ground: he won at Haydock on heavy ground and at York on soft ground at the end of last season. With very little
A state-school cricket competition announced last week with a final at Lord’s is such a good idea you wonder why it has taken until now for someone to come up with it. Ever since Lord (George) Byron convinced the authorities to allow the first Eton vs Harrow match to be played at Lord’s in 1805,
I have always enjoyed Royal Windsor Racecourse, as it styles itself. It may not have quite so many dignitaries popping in from the castle up the road as Royal Ascot does, but it has long been famed for its friendliness and approachability. Jockeys moving from the weighing room to join their mounts under the parade
Many were the jibes when Boris Johnson announced that he was ‘thrilled’ to be back on the tennis court in 2021 as lockdown restrictions eased. ‘Bloody posho poncing about on a tennis court’ or ‘how typical’ were probably some of them. Sir Keir, naturally, made sure that he was photographed on a football pitch on
A great Test match at Headingley on Tuesday, the first of five this summer against India, brought a famous victory for England’s cricketers. Required to make 371 – a target they had surpassed only once in history – they got there at 6.30 p.m. on the fifth afternoon for the loss of five wickets. It
The training talents of Ed Bethell and the spending power of Wathnan Racing could prove to be a lethal combination in the years ahead. Both are hugely ambitious and knowledgeable when it comes to all aspects of horse racing. Tomorrow PABORUS, the horse that Wathnan bought earlier this season from his original syndicate owners for
My main fancies for Royal Ascot this year have all run in the first three days and the final two days look a lot harder to me in terms of finding good wagers. Winning money from the bookmakers is hard, giving it back to them is easy. I am therefore going to approach today and
At first glance, today’s Britannia Stakes handicap (5 p.m.) at Royal Ascot looks an impossible puzzle to solve. No less than 30 three-year-old runners are due to line up and plenty of them are plot horses that will go on to win off much higher official marks than they are running from today. However, my
An inquest into the Derby in the Oakley household was to be expected. Mrs Oakley, who bets about as often as you will hear Liz Truss say ‘I’m sorry: I got it wrong’, called me at Epsom this year asking for a fiver each way on Lambourn. Since the ten-time Derby winning trainer Aidan O’Brien
The Grade 1 Prince of Wales Stakes at Royal Ascot today (4.20 p.m.) is an intriguing contest in which five of the nine runners are priced up at 6-1 or less. Los Angeles and Anmaat will renew their rivalry from the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh last month when the former beat the latter
The two staying handicaps on day one of Royal Ascot – the Ascot Stakes and the Copper Horse Stakes – are always among my favourite betting races of the week. In both of today’s races, I first look out for a horse that is well handicapped on the flat compared with its hurdles form. Willie
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
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
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
My nephew Cole is either highly intelligent with a wicked but not easily discernible sense of humour – or he’s ridiculously thick. He’s not really my nephew, but I can’t help wishing he was. I always refer to him as a member of the family because he’s arguably the most interesting sportsman in the world
Allegedly the most effective rain dance in the world is that performed by Native American Hopi Indians. The biennial 16-day rite conducted by the Snake and Antelope fraternities involves participants jiving around a column of rock in feathered dress carrying snakes in their hands and mouths. As our dry spring moves into what could be
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
As a parable that sums up the dysfunction of the modern state and the over-regulation of industry, this has it all: government by unaccountable quango, ministers whose actions are the opposite of their words, puritanical campaigners given the power to dictate how people spend their money, a refusal to recognise glaring trade-offs and the cost
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,
Without wanting to sound like a refugee from the 1950s, it was a shame that last week’s Cup Final was not the climax to the domestic season but sandwiched between a cluster of Premier League games – and kicked off at 4.30 p.m., which must have been unhelpful for those hoping to get a train
Nearly always a thriller, Newbury’s Lockinge Stakes, instituted in 1958 and a Group 1 race since 1995, is an ever-welcome signpost to the Flat season. The Guineas Classics have started the three-year-old stories; the Lockinge shows us which older horses will be battling for supremacy over a mile. For four-year-olds and upwards, it has been won