Ballydoyle’s potential superstar City Of Troy heads a field of 11 in Saturday’s Qipco 2000 Guineas Stakes at Newmarket.
Back in October when Ben Curtis decided to ride in America for the winter he would not have dared to dream how well the future would pan out. And he certainly might not have thought he would be riding in the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby.
Following 5mm of overnight rain, the going at Punchestown remains good to yielding, yielding in places ahead of the third day of the festival.
Holding a slender lead of five over reigning champion Paul Townend going into day three of the 2024 Punchestown Festival, Jack Kennedy will be hoping to get back amongst the winners on Thursday afternoon.
Fastorslow retained his Grade 1 Punchestown Gold Cup crown with a superb round of jumping and, in so doing, squared it up at 3-3 with his old rival, and reigning Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, Galopin Des Champs.
The British National Hunt season went out with a bang on Saturday at Sandown when Willie Mullins was crowned Champion British Trainer for the very first time.
His end of season assault on the British tracks was nothing short of epic with 36 runners at 6 different tracks in little over a week yielding 9 victories, including the Scottish Grand National, bet365 Gold Cup and the Grade Two Select Hurdle to seal the title.
My Racing StorySponsored By Tote
I'm from a place called Eadestown, just outside Naas, beside Punchestown racecourse. I had a pony when I was younger at home and I was kind of mad for a bit of speed! I got into Michael Halford's when I was 12 or 13. I rode out there on my school holidays and weekends for five years before I left school. There were some brilliant lads in Michael Halford's at the time like Sean Corby, who rode as an apprentice for a while, Shane Foley was stable jockey and Conor Hoban was apprentice there. You can see from Michael Halford's track record, he had some brilliant apprentices over the years including Gary Carroll. It was a great place to learn and I learned plenty. I was still very weak and green and I wasn't quite sure whether I was going to be good enough to be a jockey but, in fairness, it was the route for me. I had a crack at college in Carlow, but I didn't enjoy that - I only lasted about three weeks! I missed the horses a lot.
Willie Mullins clinches UK Trainers' Championship | Irish Angle
Vincent, Johnny and Emma discuss all of the major talking points from the past week, including Willie Mullins becoming British Champion Trainer and the sad passing of Shishkin.
By Tom Weekes - In common with many high-class novices, BLOOD DESTINY is dangerous on handicap debut. His chase form is consistently strong and although just a five-year-old, has sufficient experience to tackle his first big-field race. Path D'oroux has competed at every big festival since early December and having run well in similar valuable handicaps on each of his last four runs, should again compete under today's 5lb claimer. Stablemate and former County Hurdle winner Saint Roi hasn't won since a Grade 1 success in December 2022 but ran well at Aintree while Captains Nephew is 10lb higher than when winning at Fairyhouse (Figaroc was a distant third). Recent Tramore winner Gua Du Large's previous hurdle win was gained when rated 126 so has claims from a light weight, rated 125. A mid-race blunder scuppered Uncle Phil's recent Ayr raid but had previously shown handicap form. Pinkerton has a tougher task than when winning recently at Tipperary. Solness disappointed at Cheltenham and runs in first-time cheekpieces under a 5lb claimer while Enniskerry hasn't run since August and would appreciate good ground.
