The turf

Tom Scudamore riding Know The Score wins the Visit Our Shop 'Star Sports Mayfair' Standard Open NH Flat Race at Towcester racecourse, 14 February, 2018

‘Concussion doesn’t count’: memories of a racing dynasty

15 December 2018 9:00 am

The Scudamores are one of the bedrock families of jump racing. After being shot down and spending two years as…

How 250 cows may have changed the course of racing

8 December 2018 9:00 am

It may yet turn out that the most significant development in racing this year was the sale of some 250…

My hot tips for the coming season

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Trainer Dan Skelton and his jockey brother Harry have 100 winners on the board already but for most of us…

Luca Cumani, second from left, has announced his retirement from training

Why racing will miss Luca Cumani

10 November 2018 9:00 am

Fairy tales can happen. On Sunday the filly God Given won Italy’s only Group One race of the season, the…

DONCASTER, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 07: Jockey George Baker riding Litigant leads the field to win the Betfred November Handicap Stakes on November 7, 2015 in Doncaster, England. (Photo by Daniel Smith/Getty Images)

The dirtiest racehorse names

27 October 2018 9:00 am

Watching whip-thin jockey George Baker, just short of six feet, greeting his mounts used to make me think of the…

A no-deal Brexit could cripple horse-racing

13 October 2018 9:00 am

Racing is full of risk-takers, not least those who fork out hefty sums to buy yearlings or unraced two-year-olds. Back…

The joy of a rainy Newbury

29 September 2018 9:00 am

Mill Reef, who won the Derby, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, the Eclipse and the King George by far…

Mark Johnston with Poets Society

Always trying: Britain’s most successful – and argumentative – trainer

15 September 2018 9:00 am

An American trainer was once asked to name the greatest quality of the legendary jockey Willie Shoemaker. He replied: ‘The…

Why Goodwood is the toughest course for jockeys

1 September 2018 9:00 am

Having spent most of my life among politicians I guess I have become unaccustomed to candour. The only example I…

Racing for the app generation

18 August 2018 9:00 am

Making racing profitable depends on getting information at the right time. In the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood two Saturdays ago…

The man who rode 2,300 winners

4 August 2018 9:00 am

On a foggy November day in 1965 the young son of a Barbadian police chief was one of six contestants…

The man who rode 2,300 winners

21 July 2018 9:00 am

For Coleridge, ‘…the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind…

The happiest Royal Ascot in memory

7 July 2018 9:00 am

Let’s get the crowing over first. The returns from our Twelve to Follow over jumps last season were somewhere well…

How to handle fickle racehorse owners

23 June 2018 9:00 am

On the famed Whitsbury gallops, as corn buntings and stonechats fluttered from the fence posts, a dozen of Marcus Tregoning’s…

The thoroughbred exists because of a piece of wood: the winning post of the Epsom Derby

9 June 2018 9:00 am

In the previous 17 runnings of the Derby this century no fewer than nine had been won by horses trained…

My hot tips for the Flat season to come

26 May 2018 9:00 am

In his days as a novice jockey in the West Country, Bob Davies, who was to ride more than 900…

There is no escaping the O’Brien factor

12 May 2018 9:00 am

I suppose, given the income and the opportunity to indulge, you could eventually tire of even Meursault, Mauritius and Mrs…

The Grand National proved the naysayers wrong – again

28 April 2018 9:00 am

When the photo finish confirmed that Tiger Roll and Davy Russell had held on to win the Grand National by…

I have to concentrate pretty hard on the Flat when the Grand National hasn’t even been run

14 April 2018 9:00 am

William Haggas’s Addeybb heralded the opening of the Flat season by winning the Lincoln Handicap on 24 March but I…

It was ladies first at Cheltenham

31 March 2018 9:00 am

At soggy Newbury last Saturday racegoers were still reliving memories of an epic Cheltenham Festival. ‘Were you there for that…

Do horses really need solariums and therapeutic rugs?

17 March 2018 9:00 am

In the days when it was fashionable to mock the IQ of an American President who had taken the showbiz…

How do you solve a problem like fixed odds betting terminals?

3 March 2018 9:00 am

You can tell by the tone of the jokes how most occupations are regarded and we’ve all heard the traditional…

What makes a champion jockey

17 February 2018 9:00 am

Write a few books and you have to listen politely at parties as people who have never opened yours tell…

Everyone is talking about the little girl from Devon

3 February 2018 9:00 am

If there hasn’t yet been a hurricane called Bryony there should be. The impact of Bryony Frost, just 22, this…

Why I’ll chain myself to an earthmover at Kempton Park

20 January 2018 9:00 am

I have never been one for system betting but one little piece of guidance returns to my mind at the…