The turf
‘Racing isn’t a team sport,’ the diehards used to tell us about the Shergar Cup, Ascot’s annual contest for three-rider…
The turf
Khalid Abdullah, John Gosden and Frankie Dettori — owner, trainer and jockey — already figured among the great names of…
The art of picking winners on the Flat
‘After a few decades of marriage a man ought to be able to recognise his own wife,’ Mrs Oakley observed…
How to make a mint at the races this summer
It has been a little like scraping from the plate as slowly as possible the last traces of Mrs Oakley’s…
The difference between praying in church and praying at a racecourse
The difference between praying in church and praying at the racecourse, a gnarled old punter once said, is that at…
The Grand National a predictable affair? Not a bit of it
With great victories in Flat racing you witness hats-in-the-air exultation. You see the pride of trainers who nurtured the winner…
I managed to miss out on the glory of Cheltenham - financially anyway
Everybody has their glory memory from Cheltenham this year. Some celebrate the extraordinary seven victories for the quietly confident Willie…
Jump-racing bids farewell to the great John Ferguson
Writing a Turf column before the Cheltenham Festival, as the Spectator schedule requires, which you are reading only after the…
The second-best jump jockey ever finally gets to finish first
Richard Johnson, possibly the nicest man to occupy a saddle and certainly the most modest, once said of his Irish…
Inside the mind of a racehorse trainer
There are now two Kings of the Marlborough Downs. Leading jumps trainer Alan King has long trained top horses at…
Hot tips for next month’s Cheltenham Festival
Racing Life is all about judgment and I got one thing right at Cheltenham last Saturday after the overnight rain.…
The small wonders of horse racing
Cheltenham, Ascot and Sandown Park are wonderful but without the little tracks racing would be lost. It was perishing cold…
Why the north needs Red Rum
The well-bred Sea Pigeon, who had finished seventh in the Derby when trained at Beckhampton by Jeremy Tree, was later…
The glories of the Galapagos
Robin Oakley on what to see in the Galapagos – if you can
Wear The Fox Hat looks innocent enough but try saying it in an Irish accent
President Lyndon B. Johnson’s image never quite recovered in many people’s view from the photograph of him picking up his…
Essential racing books for Christmas
Do horses have souls or a ‘spirit’? When form expert Marten Julian was looking to buy a horse, he asked…
This year’s Twelve to Follow netted a £328 profit
Three personalities dominated the Flat season: Gosden, Dettori and Golden Horn. Victories for the trio in the Derby, the Irish…
The joys of jump racing
Thank God for jump racing. The Flat has its glitz and speed and glamour, and we could not help but…
Be warned: the mighty Air Force Blue blows away all before him
I was both delighted and unsurprised that Denis Healey made it to 98. One day in the 1970s I took…
The rewards for breaking rules of horse-racing have to stop
One of Alan Bennett’s characters once lamented, ‘We tried to set up a small anarchist community …but people wouldn’t obey…
It's scary what it takes to be (and stay) a jockey
It’s a tough old business, this racing. Hayley Turner is the best woman rider we’ve ever seen in this country.…
Mrs Oakley has finally seen the light about racing
Heaven be praised for the sinner who repenteth, however long it takes. For President George Bush Senior, his occasional meetings…
You don’t need a nose-tapping tipster to maximise your winnings
Master golfer Gary Player had the perfect retort when a 19th-hole pundit on his fourth G&T declared, ‘It’s all down…
It was a send-off to remember for the Voice of racing, Peter O’Sullevan
Reviewing a biography of Arkle, Peter O’Sullevan wrote, ‘He had an obit to die for.’ So did The Voice himself.…
The man who takes the stress out of training horses
For all their formidable physical presence, racehorses spook easily. A sudden gust of wind flapping a plastic sack, a page…
