Horse racing

The Cheltenham Festival kicks off today, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Arkle’s winning streak of 3 consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cups, from 1964-1966. Here he is winning in both ’64 and ’65: Known to many racing fans simply as ‘Himself’, no other horse has even come close to beating his astounding triple in the Gold Cup. Indeed when he first ran, in 1964, many believed that his rival Mill House was invincible. But beaten he was, and Arkle went on to be thought of as at least one of the greatest – if not the greatest – steeplechaser in history. Nowadays many racehorses are household

Here’s a tip for the gamblers among you, albeit one that you’ll have to sit on for a while. Danedream, winner of the 2011 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, has given birth to a filly foal sired by Frankel, the legendary hero of flat racing. With lineage like that, the filly already has a fair bit of weight upon her shoulders. Last week, her half sibling (the first filly foal of Frankel’s) made the front pages as she gambolled in her field days after her birth. But although the mare, Song, is well bred, she has never raced and therefore doesn’t have the same prestige as Danedream. The only other Frankel

Once upon a time there was a horse whose job was to run as fast as he could. There was just one problem. Mad Moose didn’t always fancy running. It wasn’t a matter of ability – it’s just that most of the time, he didn’t really feel like it. When he was on form, he could do fantastically well; he won at Cheltenham in 2012 after being 40 lengths behind at one point, but after that win he seemed to have had enough of it all. At his next Cheltenham appearance he refused to race, which he did again at York in May this year: In December at Sandown Park, he

This year’s Grand National meeting attracted an exceptional amount of press attention, much of it due to a number of changes which were introduced in a bid to make the race safer. As a reaction to calls from animal welfare charities such as the RSPCA and Animal Aid – the latter of whom run a ‘racehorse death-watch’ website – Aintree organisers changed the cores of the fences from wood to flexible plastic, levelled out a number of the landings on jumps, and moved the start of the race away from the crowds. So did the changes make a difference to the race? Saturday’s Grand National race was for many an

In last week’s Spectator, our man in the know Robin Oakley let us in on the secrets of who he’s backing in the Grand National, and his view on the ‘jump reforms’. With Irish trainer Willie Mullins having blitzed the Cheltenham Festival with no fewer than five winners, I am hoping that his luck continues. I backed his Prince de Beauchene for last year’s National and didn’t get a run after he was injured. I have backed him again for this year’s contest but with Willie’s other runner, On His Own, now the favourite for the race you can still get the 12–1 I got two months ago. I was a