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…
The Eclipse Stakes at Sandown: a pulsating contest between two brave horses and two thinking jockeys
Eclipse was one of the most remarkable racehorses ever. Sired by the then undistinguished Marske, whom mares could visit for…
Ryan Moore is the new Lester Piggott
Nothing pleases the Royal Ascot crowd more than a winner for the meeting’s crucial supporter, the Queen. Imagine, then, the…
Frankie Dettori: Britain’s favourite Italian is back
Nothing has been lost since William Powell Frith painted his Derby Day panorama in 1858: today, instead of the carriages…
Why jockeys prefer riding on the Flat
Getting to Goodwood last Saturday was an achievement in itself. On the Bank Holiday weekend I calculated a cross-country route…
My Twelve to Follow are seven up
Back on political duty with CNN in election week, I came across a dead rat in Downing Street. It had…
Farewell to the iron man, Tony McCoy
At Sandown Park last Saturday an era ended. Twenty thousand of us turned up to cheer on Tony McCoy as…
AP McCoy’s last chance for a fairy-tale ending
It all depends how you like your fairy tales. OK, so we would have loved the retiring Tony ‘AP’ McCoy,…
Who will fund a prize for the true fighter pilots of the Turf?
After listening to a violinist’s justification of his playing, Dr Samuel Johnson responded tartly: ‘Difficult do you call it, Sir?…
