JP McManus, his owner, has announced that three-time Champion Hurdle winner Istabraq died at 32. He was initially trained on the Flat by John Gosden, and this son of Sadler’s Wells went on to become one of the greatest and most popular National Hunt horses of the modern era after joining Aidan O’Brien. Istabraq won…
Racing Tips
Few public servants adhere to Nolan – and don’t care
As the new mob beds in at Westminster and a bunch of sads implode because Jose Esplanade is a brute and Jesus della Saucisson isn’t brute enough when it comes to training for a faux-dance competition, the entire question of good and bad behaviour is under the spotlight. It’s poor form to shoot at the…
More TV racing than you can shake a stick at!
The day has started well with my “greening up” the Betfair Golf position, thanks to Ludvig Aberg’s 4-shot lead in the Scottish Open. As I have said before, Sandy Lane’s tips are focused on the sports odds betting market- but with multiple selections to cover, I prefer to use the betting exchange market. When you back…
Game Set and Match at the Newmarket July meeting
You will have been aware of some technical issues in my recent output, capped on Saturday night by an enormous peal of thunder and a lightning bolt that unbeknownst to us, had blown out the main internet and wifi router. As it was, we woke on Sunday morning to the voice of Alexa whining that…
Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse…
… All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul. VICTOR HUGO Les Mis Vic knew a thing or two about national eclipses, and I feel sure he would have…
Biden, Southgate, Archer and Prescott. You’d do business with that firm surely?
I watched the CNN presidential debate this morning, with some scenes that may haunt us over the next few months. It was not Presidential on anybody’s behalf. It was rambling, at times incoherent, and above all sad. There was a moment when I thought maybe this was the plan all the time. Run this debate…
Rudderless, leaderless, adrift – and 25k for a new propeller!
A call from a Mate, (not not him, the other one), brightened the morning. Someone else’s catalogue of woes is always heartening, and his first-world trials and tribulations are truly tear-inducing. In no particular order, the livery, hunting stables, eventing yard and all-purpose equine money drain that is home is now surrounded on three sides…
They did all that to save us from tyranny, and we still end up with a fool.
A very jolly evening ended a week full of many pains, memories, dashed hopes, and random acts of kindness and self-sacrifice. The evening was a local fund-raiser for a small village church, which involved a wine-tasting competition. Already, I can sense your heart sinking, as did mine, at the thought of the arrayed ranks of…
Derby Day
It is a statistical mystery to me how I have participated in three different Derby sweepstakes at three different events over the last three days and not one of our various syndicated tickets has been within fifty of any drawn number. We could have purchased a Derby horse for next year for a fraction of…
Derby Dinner – Lunch – Derby Dinner – Funeral – Oaks – Wake – Derby
The back cracker has done her job as far as she can, and the physio has called the knee problem as a meniscus and told me to forget Strictly. As far as is physically possible, I am thus fit for The Derby Double Header. The Derby Double Header is notoriously difficult in the pantheon of…
A weekend of endless action and promises
Alcohol, TV and sport – that is a reasonable summary of the rest of this summer, as far as I can make out, with a small chance of nuclear fallout. Between now and July 4th—and I have already written Smarmier’s victory speech on the theme of Independence —we have to suffer 247 screen-to-audio-to-print coverage of…
Brigadier Gerard – who knew…
Tonight is Brigadier Gerard’s night, the wealthiest race evening in the calendar, the bane of my life for several years, the provider of much fun in others. In brief, worthy of note. It was the bane of my life because it tended to be run on the Thursday before the Derby – a day when…
Another exciting Premierisation of a perfectly good Sunday.
I watched the big fight last night. The Hon. summed it up very accurately: “If he keeps showing off like that, he’s going to get a thick lip.” I have no idea where she learned that sort of language – but she was spot on, except that the whole of his face took a battering….
Thank you Brian for my good dinner, Amen
A very happy day at Newbury yesterday, hidden away from The Hon and the Nephew in a box with Nicky Henderson, the Lambourn Jet Set, some City High Flyers and assorted other good eggs. The event was a charity lunch Nicky has chaired for almost a decade in aid of Starlight, a children’s charity that…
York Dante Meeting Day 2
I thought the day would go swimmingly well—we were spot on in the first and somewhat foolishly swerved the opportunity to call the 32/1 forecast. But from then on, we might as well have been talking gobbledygook. Somewhere in the middle of it all, the Slovakian PM was shot. I kept half-an-eye on that and…
Day 1 of The York Dante Meeting – and a plea for fairness
When The Deluge comes – and please save your money by NOT punting on a hung parliament – the new Culture Secretary (in charge of our sport) will likely be somebody who changed her name from Singh to Debbonnaire. In that one astonishingly hubristic move, Ms Thangam D. not only managed to misspell her new…
The Lingfield Classic trials – Ascot and a very rare 10 pt bet.
It was another unclever day. I did work out on the back of an envelope that if I had backed Stalls 1-5 inclusive over the three days and backed them with The Tote in Trifectas at £60 a pop, I would have made over £800 profit. That said, you would have been getting a little…
Chester May Meeting Day 3 – plus Marmalade, Greek girls and American fakes
This morning, a propos of absolutely nothing, I spent too much time pondering over the essential matters of modern living that had grasped my attention in the last 24 hours – quite apart from the wretched draw at Chester. The first was whether The Savoy or Claridges makes its own Marmalade from scratch, on-site. I…
Chester May Festival Day 2
It was a sad day yesterday at Chester – but also pretty weird. The weirdness emanated from the results, which even my late Nanny knew enough to exclaim as she made our breakfast after a night out with her friends from Liverpool: “You need to have your draws down very low at Chester” In the…
Chester May Meeting Day 1.
There’s a line in Peter Pan which goes: “In time they could not even fly after their hats. Want of practice, they called it; but what it really meant was that they no longer believed.” I suspect, too, that many of my regular readers have become incapable of going after their wind-tossed racing trilbys because…
The City of Troy lies somewhere over the rainbow together with Tory hopes.
Somewhere near your home at this very moment are two different houses. One of them has Sabrina Habitat-Scatter-Cushion dabbing her eyes at the breakfast table and saying, “What is to become of us?” At the other end of the village, Roger Bader-Kite tells his house guests over breakfast, “We have to gather round the old…
A little bit of French, a touch of Swahili and a dollop of nag. Here’s a lot of tips
Back at 2:00am, from a delicious dinner in London at Le Colombier next to the Royal Marsden. Super service, a sensational wine list, a good collection of Chelsea’s finest 70-somethings who patently regarded the place as their caff, and some excellent food, including a very good Fricassée de Rognons de Veau à la Dijonnaise. The…
Punchestown and The Guineas. Col. Tufty Bufty tells Lawrence what he thinks of the entries
45 runners declared for the whole Newmarket card… what can I say? At Goodwood in the 3:50, there is £40k in guaranteed prize money, with five runners. Why?? It can’t be on the ground conditions; it was G/S when the final decs were called. Its – Its… what is the word??? Meanwhile, the frantic social…
Punchestown Day 3
It’s a terribly busy week, so straight in and on. I have popped the dismal results under each post. I shall surely hit form soon! I had started to write about dinner last night, but it was so ghastly, and one or two of the crowd were so deeply sanctimonious, ill-informed and self-opinionated in the…
Punchestown Day 2 plus Ascot
You will have seen that my sources led me astray and that EMBASSY GARDENS ran like a dog, and not a very well one at that. I am waiting to hear what exactly went wrong. If that had been our only disappointment yesterday, I could have coped, but overall, in financial terms, it was a…
Punchestown Day 1
I am always caught unawares by the arrival of May and the vast voids of public holidays and people doing zip that it brings. Any interrogation of any service, engineer, tradesman, driver, cleaner, stone waller, thatcher, or bottle washer comes with a sharp intake of breath as though one has just made an accidental pass…
Is this beginning of The Beguine or is it the end of the Irish jig?
In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s the last day of the proper NH season, and before we all start the huffing and puffing again in October, I thought I should seek counselling from Madame Arcati, whose reputation for accurate soothsaying can only be matched by her fees. I asked her to relieve some of my…
Not actually Posted – but sent by email
What ho,- Many of you might have heard I was taking The Hon hill-walking in Tuscany this week. In fact, we swerved it because of two family deaths, an unsteady pater, a filthy weather report, and an inability to agree on an itinerary. So, instead, we headed off to Tenerife, having acquired a taste for…
Aintree Grand National Meeting: Day 3 THE GRAND NATIONAL
It happens pretty well every weekend. Of the half dozen or so races that I explore to suggest and sometimes select a winner, I inevitably – if only as a matter of statistical probability – get it right. Sometimes, of course, you have days like today. Days when one forensically examines the possibilities and then,…
Aintree Grand National Meeting: Day 2
It was not the worst of days for us, but I would have thought it was pretty awful for Hendo. Of his four runners, his only winner seemed constantly surprised to see a hurdle, and the other three all finished in the bottom half of their fields. The fact that Sir Gino won despite his…
Aintree Grand National Meeting: Day 1
One of the subscribers asked what courses might be considered similar to Aintree. The straight answer would be Newcastle, Ayr, Doncaster, Ffos Las, Haydock, Newbury, Wetherby, Uttoxeter, and Worcester. Left-handed and reasonably flat. The more worldly-wise amongst you will know that there is no comparative course. At the Pardubice, for example, the fences might once…
Farewell Gentle Coz.
It’s been a lousy week, made far worse today by the unexpected news that the 80-year-old widow of my late Coz was tragically killed yesterday in a freak accident in a pub car park. Do not smile… such things can happen to the Kneesup clan when they least expect it. I had known her since…
Content to be thought foolish and stupid.
I seem to spend more and more time confusing April Fools’ Day with the rest of the month and year. I must believe that some 30% of all the stories I read are fake. For example, surely this selection of today’s headlines, none of which I have gone to any lengths to find, cannot all…
The lost weekend – well parts of Friday anyway!
Be in no doubt that when the chips are down and all appears lost, Corney and Barrow can fill the void with a small cheering glass. Thus, a few of the helpers (seven and two liggers) who usually make the whole Lambourn Open Day spin along gathered to commiserate over the abandoned day. A little…
I don’t know about Good – its certainly a very Busy Friday
I was blissfully unaware of the televised racing from my usual lenten posture, which I traditionally adopt at this time of year. Probably weak from 40 days of fasting, I could only see torrential rain and various other Godly visitations through the sackcloth, ashes and palm fronds. Among the plagues visited on us has been…
A flat start to The Flat
Doesn’t life change rapidly? Last week, the supposed greatest racing festival, today is the start of the Flat season. Yesterday, we went off to Wallingford to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang done by the local players – which was fab and, in places, rather surprisingly sexy – or maybe I’m just a sad old git….
Saturday – a time for quiet reflection
As we seem to be surrounded by retired football managers all screaming, “Gitonmason” (I’m interpreting the accent), I too want to give a loud “Oooochaarrr” for the wisely invested Kneesup hours, which led to today’s results showing a 90.17pt profit. Over the four days, we recommended bets totalling 147.5 points, which delivered an ROI of…
Cheltenham Festival Day 3
DAY 3: THURSDAY 14 MARCH 13:30 THE TURNERS NOV. CHASE (G1) 2m 4f Chase ZANAHIYR has had a good season so far with two decent graded runs before converting to Chasing. His debut saw him run into Fact To File, and his poor jumping didn’t aid his cause – but he did have Minella Cocooner…
Cheltenham Festival Day 1
As of 8:30 am on Monday, the ground was Soft all over, and the Cross Country was Heavy, Soft in places. Some drizzle was possible on Monday. Showers are forecast for the early hours and into the morning on Tuesday (3-4mm). This will be Soft, sticky ground and beginning to dry. Champion Day – Tuesday,…
LAMBOURN – WHERE THE OSCARS ARE ACTUALLY DECIDED
It’s been a week when as much caught the ear as the eye. The Chancellor (how quickly we forget he once saw himself as The PM) said in his Jam Tomorrow and The Day After deceitful Budget speech: “We believe that in a free society the money you earn doesn’t belong to the government. It…
Raceweb’s Cheltenham Festival: The Stats Pack – 20 STATS YOU NEVER KNEW
The following statistics, trends, and anomalies, call it what you will – these numbers – provide a potentially useful insight into possible Festival race outcomes. The numbers are facts, but as a dear friend once remarked after Mon Mome’s National victory, your statistic on French-bred National runners winning isn’t wrong; it’s simply that there are…
How did Jeffrey do it?
My hero, Jeffrey Joseph Bernard, of sainted fame, could any day after 6:00 pm do a bottle of vodka, consume a decent dinner, talk racing happily for hours, drink claret, smoke a packet of fags, go to Grouchos, pull a barmaid and be tucked up in bed by 2:00 am. I tried this yesterday without…
The 2024 Cheltenham Festival – The Kneesup Overview
Whatever happens, please ensure that you only bet NRNB. Also remember that if there is a non-runner in Doubles, for example, the bet becomes a Single. Thus an 11 bet Yankee (1x 4, 4×3, 6×2) with a non-runner becomes a Patent (1×3 – 6×2 – 3×1 with 1 stake returned). Champion Day – Tuesday, March…
Parliamentary duplicity, some Grand National tips, and a frictionless potato peeler.
IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES… As luck (entirely the wrong word for what transpired) would have it, I decided at about 6:30 on Wednesday night to see how the Commons was getting on with what passes for political debate these days, and have a gander at the Opposition Day SNP motion in action. It’s…
Sunday Golf, Irish racing, Secret shredding
With not much doing on the social front, attention has turned to resolving some issues in the office – such as a mountain of papers. The Hon is on shredding duty, as she is rightly concerned that information is power, and in the days of paper recycling and special bins, a walk around Notting Hill…
Cancel Cheltenham – we’re all going to Bicester Village to buy a hat.
It has been a busy week, which I have covered elsewhere, and albeit I have slightly recovered from a week full of shocks and Valentine’s needs and planning, I am still reeling from Ascot’s appointment of a style guru who will explain to me how to put on a top hat. Meanwhile, the Ascot PR…
Weather aside – there’s quite a lot going on, sportswise.
Rain, snow, sleet, plagues of frogs or locusts, we shouldn’t be surprised, although Thursday in Scottsdale did slightly bamboozle me and most of the Koreans on the tour, who all seemed shy of the appropriate wet weather gear. No such thing as bad weather, dear, just inappropriate clothing was what Nanny was often heard to…
FOR A BRIEF MOMENT THERE, I THOUGHT I WAS IN TROUBLE
In the back of my mind resides many trivial racing stats. I trot them out periodically for a freshen-up and a bit of a brush-down because they’re going for a gallop quite soon, and you need to know that alles ist in Ordnung, as they used to say in Stalag Luft VII after a dodgy…
Between teenage killers, corruption in the Town Hall, barmy illegals, HMRC and the bookmakers – what could possibly go wrong?
My recent observations on the ferality of much of the infrastructure of the departmentalised Civil Service, with specific reference to HMRC, struck a personal chord with one reader. He/She/They wrote: “I have been hounded for doing nothing illegal, for paying the agreed tax in place at the time, and paying it promptly, and have been…
On a Progress to Worcestershire – Which given the paucity of decent racing is probably a good thing
I’m really not that interested in AW racing, and even less so after the outburst of Martin Cruddace this week. Cruddace, a name that smacks of Nominative Determinism, runs Arena Racing, and this week, he accused figures in racing who continually called for greater transparency on racecourses’ media rights income as being “economically illiterate” and…