Tina Cook, sister to Nick Gifford and daughter of Josh and Althea, won two bronze medals last night – in the individual and the team eventing competitions.  It’s an extraordinary achievement. I barely know Tina – our paths have crossed a few times in the kitchen at Downs stables and at the odd event – but I feel particularly awed …

I had an amazing days betting yesterday.  I had a bit of spare time and I decided to have a bet on the next race.  The horse won at slightly better than 5/1 – I carried on to the next race.  I ended up backing five successive winners including Darksideofthemoon which I averaged in to at over 25/1.  I decided …

Swindon’s season proper kicks off on Saturday and I’m a little nervous but also excited.  It’s been a while since I’ve supported a team properly and I’ve never been as close to the action as I am now. I think the early matches are extremely important, as we’ve done a lot to try and get attendances up and we need to …

Back in Blighty, and welcomed in by a staggeringly good performance by Marine Boy, who may turn out to be the superstar we have seen on the gallops. I had two weeks in the Forte Village in Sardinia with the family.  It’s a fantastic family resort – loads to do, extremely clean and well run, great food, cheerful friendly staff.  …

Bert is due back today but is scheduled to land just too late to get to Newbury in time to see his debutant two year old Marine Boy (2:10). I will be going in the hope of having a trophy to collect. Marine Boy has shown he has ability at home, as his Gimcrack entry suggests, but the pitfalls of …

Just a quick note about Winker Watson’s run yesterday. Before the race it seemed that he had two questions to answer – 1) Had he trained on and 2) Would he stay a mile ? Thankfully the answer to the first one was positive though we got a clear no to the second. Ryan Moore said after the race that …

I did one thing yesterday that was vaguely clever.  I thought Greg Norman was a touch long in the win market – a price of 27 for a guy in outright second felt big even accounting for age and tendency to bottle the big ones.  I had £3.5k on at 27 and 28 and put it back in at 24 …

Jane and I went to the tennis yesterday.  Semi-finals day is often the best day to go, but yesterday was just the administration of a couple of sound beatings and the prelude to what might be a classic final. I grew up in Wimbledon and I’ve been to the tennis virtually every year since I was a small boy.  I’ve …

Another group 1 wings its way to Ballydoyle, but again it was an unsatisfactory race.  I’ve watched the race a few times – it isn’t clear to me whether or not the AOB trained Tabor owned Frozen Fire would have won had the AOB trained Tabor owned Alessandro Volta not veered dramatically left when he did, taking out most of the …

I went to Ascot on Thursday, feeling a bit sheepish – parts of my blog had been written up in the Racing Post, and it had also been written up on an Australian news site. Skid was running in the first race – I was hopeful of a decent run but he could never go the pace and trailed in tenth …