An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Irishman Martin Brassil is a brilliant target trainer but even he has to handle the ups and downs that come with participating in the so-called Sport of Kings. Horse racing, particularly at the highest level, can bring despair as well as joy as Brassil experienced at last week’s Cheltenham Festival when he had three fancied
The greatest rivalry in football for the past decade is coming to an end. Managers Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola clashed in 30 games across Germany and England, but neither came out decisively on top (their final meeting was a 1-1 draw earlier this month). In May, Klopp will leave Liverpool for good. It’s a
Finland has a population of only 5.5 million, but it leads the world in motorsport. It’s the crucible of racing greats Markku Alén, Timo Salonen, Ari Vatanen, Keke Rosberg, Hannu Mikkola, Juha Kankkunen, Tommi Mäkinen, Mika Häkkinen, Marcus Grönholm, Kimi Räikkönen, reigning World Rally champion Kalle Rovanperä and current Formula One driver Valtteri Bottas. Known
The Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup (3.30 p.m.) is the highlight of not just the final day of the Cheltenham Festival but this whole glorious week of racing. Yet, again, the Festival has been largely dominated by horses from the other side of the Irish Sea but I hope a British-trained horse will land the £350,00-plus
When you play a game – cards, backgammon, chess – should you listen to your head or your heart? Do you sit there coldly calculating the odds, or do you go with a hunch, gut instinct, your sixth sense? It’s a question I’m discussing with Marcus du Sautoy as we sit in the Beaumont Hotel
There are two competitive big races to look forward to on day three of the Cheltenham Festival: the Grade 1 Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle (3.30 p.m.) and the Grade 2 Ryanair Chase (2.50 p.m.) The former race is for experienced staying hurdlers over a trip of three miles and I am happy to have already
The Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase (3.30 p.m.) is the highlight of day two of the Cheltenham Festival and – despite Jonbon’s defection this morning – it provides an intriguing seven-runner contest over two miles. There are various arguments to be made for the top two in the market – El Fabiolo and Edwardstone –
Lucinda Russell is a trainer that I love to have on my side for the Cheltenham Festival. It’s not simply that she has got to be one of the nicest people in racing but, more importantly from the viewpoint of a gambler, she knows exactly how to prime one of her best horses for a
For as long as anyone can remember, Tottenham Hotspur have offered half price season tickets for pensioners. No longer. This has been scrapped from the beginning of next season. Those already enjoying the 50 per cent concession in the vain hope they will live long enough to see the team win a trophy again will see
It may come as a surprise that, even though we are just four days away from a certain major racing Festival in the Cotswolds, today’s betting column will be a no go area when it comes to putting up tips for Cheltenham next week. There are three reasons, all hopefully logical, for this approach. First,
BENSON did this column a massive favour a year ago when landing the bet365 Morebattle Hurdle after being put up at 16-1 (he went off at a starting price of 11/1). In truth, he faces a stiffer task in the same race tomorrow because he is both one year older and running off the top
Back in November, 20 horses went to post in the Troytown Chase at Navan. Fourteen were trained in Co. Meath by Gordon Elliott, who provided the winner Coko Beach and four of the first five home. He broke no rules. To those who objected to his mass entry, Elliott retorted that he hadn’t stopped any
Tomorrow’s Bet Eider Handicap Chase at Newcastle is just the sort of marathon contest in which I usually like to have a bet but, with so many of the 13 runners out of form and the going likely to be very soft, I am happy to give it a miss this time around. Instead, I
I love it when the England cricket team flies east in the winter. It means they’re playing in the early morning, UK time, and that’s just when I need them the most. Because cricket is a powerful antidepressant. Without the sound or sight of bat on ball, early mornings at the moment would hold their
Watching England play Wales in the Six Nations the other day, a lacklustre match between two middling sides and distinguished only by lashings of Welsh hwyl as the visitors outperformed their role as underdogs, I remarked to the Irish friend who was with me: ‘The Welsh don’t like the English, do they?’ ‘Get in line,’
The run-up to the Cheltenham Festival is a quiet time for many punters with some of the best horses in the land effectively wrapped-up in cotton wool so as not to sustain an injury that would keep them out of their big-race targets next month. However, there is plenty of competitive racing on offer at
Football is becoming a testing ground for every madcap idea the supposed guardians of the sport can come up with. The latest is the blue card, a stopgap between the yellow and red cards for bookings and sendings off, designed to send players to a sin bin for ten minutes should they commit one of
The heavy rain of the past 48 hours is good news for two horses that I fancy for the ultra-competitive Betfair Hurdle tomorrow (Newbury, 3.15 p.m.). The ground is now ‘heavy, soft in places’ and more rain forecast later today. I put up BRENTFORD HOPE at 14-1 for the race four weeks ago and his
You couldn’t miss the heartbreaking irony of one of the greatest rugby players who ever pulled on his boots passing away just as the latest tournament was getting under way featuring 18-stone behemoths smashing into each other. Barry John, who retired at 27 and died last Sunday at 79, could have walked through brick walls
Vince McMahon is the godfather of modern wrestling, an American entrepreneur and media magnate worth a cool $2.8 billion. He was raised in a trailer park in North Carolina but went on to turn the World Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE) into a global phenomenon. McMahon is responsible for creating superstars like Hulk Hogan
The look on the doctor’s face as he showed my parents the X-ray of my skull was quizzical but reassuring. ‘We were a bit worried by this line on the left,’ he indicated a very thin line from the top of the cranium, straight down. ‘But we saw that there is a line exactly similar
The two-day Dublin Racing Festival this weekend will – just as Cheltenham Trials Day did a week ago – provide a host of clues to which horses might win the big races at the Cheltenham Festival in mid-March. I covered tomorrow’s Grade1 Nathaniel Lacy & Partners Solicitors Novice Hurdle (Leopardstown, 1.20 p.m.) in my column
Most England managers lose their jobs over bad results: Roy Hodgson was sacked after being humiliated by Iceland, Graham Taylor for losing a must-win qualifier against Holland, Kevin Keegan quit after a bitter home defeat to Germany. There have been exceptions, though: Sam Allardyce went for bragging to an undercover reporter how he could do
If a glittering eight-race card at Cheltenham tomorrow doesn’t whet the appetite for the Festival in less than two months’ time, then nothing will. Plenty of reputations will go on the line at Festival Trials Day and there will be an abundance of clues to which horses might be winning huge prizes between 12 March
Did football officials watch Mr Bates vs The Post Office? They should have – and learned from it. Otherwise they could be next in the crosshairs of a TV dramatist. Just as the Post Office failed to act as they should have done to protect sub-postmasters, football – and rugby for that matter – is
Golf has always felt like the embarrassing uncle of the sporting world, from those garish check slacks and snobby clubhouse rules to the desperate middle-managers sucking up to the boss at the 18th hole. Like many non-golfers I could never understand the appeal. Surely only a masochist would find pleasure whacking tiny balls into tiny holes.
The former England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has terminal cancer, he says he expects to be dead before the year is out. In an age when such grim diagnoses are usually kept private until their morbid predictions have come to pass, it was characteristically candid of the 75-year-old Swede to go public like this, even
With tomorrow’s cards at Ascot and Haydock both victims of the cold snap, and Lingfield’s Sunday meeting under threat, it makes sense to look ahead with some ante-post bets, for once on both sides of the Irish Sea. I like to back horses in the Randox Grand National a long way ahead of the race
I’m not sure how the BBC would have taken it in my Nine O’Clock News days if after a tough interview I had embraced a disconsolate politician (though I can guess and it wouldn’t have been to the corporation’s credit). It was, though, the best moment in the ITV coverage of last Saturday’s racing, when
