ITV Racing Archives

Weekend Racing Tips

In the eye of the storm before the deluge.

We’re in the eye of Storm Dressdown, the calm epicentre of the surrounding torrent of hot-air and clashing reputations, where we have most of the

Weekend Racing Tips

You only get some bums visit once a year

A tiring but jolly and good Friday in town, where I attend the AGM and annual lunch of The Turf Automobile Society. This august body

Weekend Racing Tips

Love The English.

On paper, we were down 9 pts, but with Bangers and Cash a non-runner in the Lucky Last, I backed Castle Robin e/w at 10s

Weekend Racing Tips

Just another brick in the wall

RIP Kit Hesketh-Harvey, an amusing, talented and thoughtful man. Thank heavens that the Welsh Woke Police have got hold of the Delilah issue and rapped

Weekend Racing Tips

Please God – a jolly Saturday at Cheltenham

As I write this, there is still every chance that some, none, or all of the racing might be abandoned. If only bad weather could

Weekend Racing Tips

Cheltenham November – not Open – Meeting Day 2

I was pulled up by a Cheltenham Grandee today when I exclaimed how much I was looking forward to the first day of The Open.

Weekend Racing Tips

The Handmaid’s tipping sheet

I arrive, as ever, late to the party and so am finally able to say “Lumme. That Margaret Attwood and her Handmaid’s Tale. Bleak? …

Weekend Racing Tips

One last gigantic throw of the dice, before we flatten out.

Tomorrow it starts. The last big meeting, the final hurrah for 2022. The Breeders Cup gets underway on Friday, ends on Saturday and sandwiches The

Weekend Racing Tips

A new exciting national PM Hunt season gets under way

We live in a world where it is increasingly difficult not to have some major cause for unsettling angst. Penury, hypothermia, dehydration, pandemic, nuclear war,

Tips

Up the Amazon without a stamp

A little shout-out to Amazon, from whom I bought some stamps last June in bulk. What can go wrong with that transaction, I thought. Nothing

TV & Radio

Off to Longchamp via Warmington-on-Sea

As the weekend looms, it’s difficult to know how to divide one’s time. The TV alone will be providing: The Singapore Grand Prix (Sunday 1:00

Weekend Racing Tips

The Fleche was strong -but is racing’s spirit weak?

The Autumn double arrives with The Cambridgeshire, a race with a history that should reinvigorate the spirit and souls of ALL racing fans as they

Weekend Racing Tips

Through a glass darkly.

Since we were last together, it is accurate to say that the world has changed, and the impact of those changes is primarily unseen and

St Leger Festival

A theatrical evening before Day 2 of Donny

I went to The Barn Theatre in Cirencester last night to see Driving Miss Daisy. The Barn is a relatively new theatre whose newness was

The circus comes to town.

This week’s diary found me pinning a badge saying “I like Milk from Cows” on a small Ukrainian child. As you might imagine, my historical

Uncategorized

The York Ebor Day 4

An agonisingly slow day in the office – but not at York where the ground simply got faster. No Stradivarius (not as predicted) and no

York Ebor Meeting

York Day 2

Well, there can’t be many times when you get beaten out of sight and you’re cheering the photograph that shows you coming third. The result

And so it begins….

There is a lot of pressure this week as we prepare for the builders to arrive and we also move into temporary offices. The Wifi

July Festival

Stand by to fend off all boarders: July Festival Day 2

The Hon. is diseased and I have run out the Yellow Jack to warn the bumboats, tinkers and itinerant matchstick sellers to stay away. I

This next month will prove crucial to the future of racing

I suppose one might describe this past week as better than expected. In cellar terms, not a filthy glugging week, but more a robust cru

Royal Ascot

Smiles for Day 1 and onto Royal Ascot Day 2

What a marvellous day. I spent the morning in the company of one of the best jockeys of the last quarter of the 20th century

Epsom Derby

The Derby Meeting – Oaks Friday

Overarching all that we do in these brief few days, the aura of Her Majesty’s presence shines out. From the top of White Horse Hill,

Dante Meeting

York’s Dante Meeting Day 3

Normal service resumed today and I am beginning to scratch the scalp. Certainly, some of the results have been very unexpected, but nonetheless, I am

Dante Meeting

The Dante Meeting Day 2

Another (as in rare and yes we have had them before), profitable day at Raceweb Towers! The crowd at York was down – but according

All this and The Kentucky Derby

What a joy to be at Badminton. From the Car Park to The Members Enclosure was just shy of 3000 paces. Shopping with The Hon,

Chester May Meeting

The looming of a long weekend.

I’m still slightly reeling – as indeed is The Hon. – at the result of Man City, Real Madrid. We had both been given free

Chester May Meeting

Chester May Meeting Day 1

Many years ago, Brough Scott, the late great Tony Fairbairn and I went to see Woodrow Wyatt the late and not very great chairman of

Newmarket Guineas Meeting

I almost made 2000 Guineas today

A day of almosts… we almost had a wonderful set of fourfold accumulators come off; we almost got it right on Ricci Rich having the

Newmarket Guineas Meeting

The Guineas Meeting Day 1

It isn’t every day that we pull a 25/1 winner out of the hat, but that is what we did in the Bumper yesterday at

Tips

Welcome to The Twilight Zone

I have this vision of hundreds of people around the country, wandering around in their Jim Jams and dressing gowns, shuffling from fridge to kettle

Aintree GN

It’s Grand – but is it Cornish?

My day can be summarised by the outcome of the Aintree race at 4:40 pm, and my huge wager on STAG HORN. So appalled was

Cheltenham March

Cheltenham Ladies Day – Wednesday

A very jolly lunch with racing and pointing folk. Our host has of late become increasingly deaf, and lives in a world where TVs are

Cheltenham March

The Cheltenham Question

I had a jolly Fish and Chip supper at a local pub last night with my old friend The FinTech Brain, and while inventing a

Weekend Racing Tips

Sunday’s racing tips and the DRF

We managed to claw a bit back on Saturday and ended up +10.35pts. The Treble crashed out on the first leg but provided two odds-on

Weekend Racing Tips

Chinese prove that Claret fights Covid.

As I write, I discover Barry Cryer has died. I saw him on The Edinburgh Fringe many years ago, and the wave of affection and

Weekend Racing Tips

Better the devil you know…

It’s hard to know what to make of the nellies who constitute the lower orders on the Conservative backbenches. The Rt. Hon. Member for Frightfully-Cross

Weekend Racing Tips

I bet I’m a better person by the end of the year!

Despite calling in sick for exactly 26 days, it turns out that the Lateral Flow Tests I used every seven days were all flawed, and

Weekend Racing Tips

2021 – Half-full at best.

A slow and steady start to the day after a delicious beano last night. Chums from Warwickshire who had been dining elsewhere came to inspect

Weekend Racing Tips

It’s the little things that make one itch

Robert Duvall – possibly my favourite American film actor – once said: “It’s no big thing, but you make big things out of little things

Weekend Racing Tips

Going Free, Going Soon – Aga

The elephant in the room at Villa Kneesup, is the inherited double oven gas Aga that pumps out about the same heat as Chernobyl as

Weekend Racing Tips

Look out – it’s the feast of Stephen

Very little time is left now for a preamble. I still fear that the medical panjandrums will force the Government’s hand and my SPAD-based tip

Weekend Racing Tips

Crikey – is there nowhere the cameras won’t be today?

Three English racecourses, two jumps meeting, the final televised Flat Handicap Turf race (as I type I wonder whether that’s right?) of the 2021 season,

Tips

Burgers and Beer – it must be BC

Were I to be asked to take High Office, I’m afraid that some of my beastlier attributes might come out – not least my intense

Weekend Racing Tips

Another nail in the coffin rather than the horseshoe.

I seem to spend a fair amount of time these days, accidentally drifting in and out of parallel universes. In this multiplicity of locations, 16

Weekend Racing Tips

QIPCO British Champions Day

A quiet lunch in East Garston, where I see the shoot wagon bringing in hungry souls all sporting long woollen socks and rather bizarrely in

Weekend Racing Tips

A tricky day’s racing, in a week full of tosh.

I just spent two hours writing a preamble that was just another tired rant and I realised that it was pointless. There are simply too

Weekend Racing Tips

My loyalty has been discarded – along with the Gold Card.

Despite empty shelves, nobody apparently working, the collapse of Kabul, the changes to the NH handicapping system, the sale of the house, and a 15-week-old

York Ebor Meeting