Latest Irish sports news headlines | The Phoenix Magazine

Sport of Kings

DONNELLYS’ HOLLOW SEASON

December 11, 2025

LOADED OWNERS Joe and Marie Donnelly watched on last season as their horses suffered numerous setbacks and some bad luck. Now their focus... Read more »

Ed Dunlop David Dunsdon Sarah Lynam Rebecca May Wayne Hassett Eoin O'Brien Michael Burke Aine O’Connor Ashroe Diamond Thomand O’Mara Peter Keatley Timmy Hyde Coolmore All About Sunday Colin Keane Ronan Whelan JP McManus Jessica Harrington Dundalk Racecourse Paul Hensey Irish National Hunt Horse-racing Doping Paddy Walsh Tom Kelly Suspension

TATTERSALLS TALES

December 11, 2025

DESPITE SPENDING over £11m for four mares at the recent Tattersalls Newmarket Mare Sale, Coolmore’s MV Magnier failed to secure the top lot.... Read more »

SKELTON’S SQUAD DEPTH

November 27, 2025

THE PURSUIT by Willie Mullins of a third straight UK National Hunt Trainers Championship is being met with stern opposition from Dan Skelton,... Read more »

BYRNES’S ‘PORSCHE’ GAMBLE

November 27, 2025

CHARLES BYRNES is no stranger to making racing headlines and did so again when landing another sizeable gamble at Dundalk earlier this month.... Read more »

KIA KEEPS SPENDING

November 12, 2025

KIA JOORABCHIAN’S Amo Racing failed to hit the headlines with its runners at the various big end-of-season meetings this year but it has... Read more »

BYRNES FRIGHT

November 12, 2025

Limerick trainer Charles Byrnes and his son, Philip, are to face an Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) referrals committee hearing next month over... Read more »

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’

November 12, 2025

THE IRISH headline maker at the recent Breeders’ Cup Meeting was the Willie Mullins-trained Ethical Diamond at 28/1, which marked another red-letter day... Read more »

‘LIKE A BIG SISSY’

November 12, 2025

NEWLY CROWNED UK champion jockey Oisin Murphy recently found himself on the receiving end of criticism from Newmarket trainer Willie Haggas, who acknowledged... Read more »

RICHARD FAHEY’S SHOCK GLORY

October 30, 2025

YORKSHIRE-BASED Richard Fahey caused the biggest shock in European Group 1 history when his 200/1 outsider, Powerful Glory, powered home under Jamie Spencer... Read more »

STUMPTOWN’S BIG CZECH

October 30, 2025

STUMPTOWN SURVIVED quite the blunder to land the Czech Republic’s most prestigious race, the four-and-a-half-mile Velka Pardubicka cross-country run at Pardubice. Trained by... Read more »

ERIC McCARTHY’S FORM

October 30, 2025

UNLIKE 2024 when returning five winners, Eric McNamara had a quiet time at the Listowel Harvest Festival, with this year’s accolades going instead... Read more »

JP McMANUS’S COMPO

October 16, 2025

JP McMANUS and veteran light-weight jockey Niall McCullagh recently teamed up to land quite a punt in the valuable Friends of the Curragh... Read more »

MULRYAN’S FORM

October 16, 2025

BIG-SPENDING racehorse owner Sean Mulryan also happens to be a minted property developer and he recently landed the Freedom of the City of... Read more »

INTERVIEW WITH THE JOCKEY

October 2, 2025

THREE JOCKEYS – Ben Harvey, Alex Harvey and Tom Harney – were each fined €400 by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board’s (IHRB) referrals... Read more »

THE REAL WHACKER

October 2, 2025

ENGLAND-BASED trainer Patrick Neville has just been adjudged a bankrupt at Darlington court. According to the Racing Post, the petition had been lodged... Read more »

GOOD FRIDAY GOING

October 2, 2025

LEOPARDSTOWN RACECOURSE’S interim boss, Vicki Donlon, oversaw a 12% rise in attendance at the recent Championship Weekend race day, before exiting the south... Read more »

JP McMANUS’S BAD DREAM

September 18, 2025

GENEVA-BASED JP McManus’s dream of winning the Club Godolphin Cesarewitch with his 10/1 second favourite, A Dream To Share, has turned into something... Read more »

BEACH BODIES

September 18, 2025

LAYTOWN RACES’S September beach race day featured some popular winners this year. Owner James McAuley and his Hilltop Racing entourage returned from a... Read more »

EMMET’S IMPROVERS

September 4, 2025

KILKENNY TRAINER Emmet Mullins appears to have unearthed another ‘improver’ from the Co Laois stable of trainer Shane Duffy. Duffy, who has not... Read more »

MCKENNA RIDES ON

September 4, 2025

GOLDHAWK NOTED the IHRB’s appeals body, chaired by Nick Wachman, has overturned a ban imposed on jockey Liam McKenna following a ride at... Read more »

HEFFERNAN’S HORSE

September 4, 2025

IT WAS a very good day for the HOS Syndicate’s Ethical Diamond, which became the third Willie Mullins-trained winner of York’s Sky Bet... Read more »

TALLY HO TO YORK

August 21, 2025

THE OWNERS of Lady Iman – the Tally Ho branch of the O’Callaghan family – have overruled trainer Ger Lyons by supplementing their... Read more »

LADY KAI’S COLLAPSE

August 21, 2025

THE IRISH leg of the Fegentri World Championship for amateur riders was run at Leopardstown earlier this month but the race lost much... Read more »

DAWN RUN RETURN

August 21, 2025

THE FAMOUS red and black silks of Dawn Run returned to the winners’ enclosure on August 6 when they were donned by Gabriella... Read more »

DREAL DEAL DELIVERS

August 7, 2025

DREAL DEAL, a horse with an interesting past and who was once trained by Ronan McNally, returned to something like his best form... Read more »

PHILIP ROTHWELL’S ALL-CLEAR

August 7, 2025

PHILIP ROTHWELL also made headlines at Ballinrobe recently, albeit for all the wrong reasons. His charge, Coolboy Christie, owned by the Geesala Racing... Read more »

KIA’S CONSISTENT FORM

August 7, 2025

HISTORY OFTEN repeats itself and ‘Glorious Goodwood’ – or not so glorious this year – once again saw the big-spending owners of Amo... Read more »

STILL PURRING ALONG

July 24, 2025

THE AMENDED result of Down Royal’s Laura Nicholas Handicap last month raised a few eyebrows and, not surprisingly, there was quite the kerfuffle... Read more »

COLIN KEANE’S ROUGH RIDE

July 24, 2025

JUDDMONTE’S NEW retained rider Colin Keane was the latest rider to fall foul of the British Horseracing Authority’s whip review committee, resulting in... Read more »

DARRAGH O’LOUGHLIN’S ‘ACTIONS’

July 24, 2025

IRISH HORSE Racing Regulatory Board (IHRB) chief executive Darragh O’Loughlin has revealed in the 2024 IHRB annual report that “significant actions” have been... Read more »

KAVANAGH’S POOL GAME

July 10, 2025

CURRAGH BOSS Brian Kavanagh was one of the few “delighted with the number of runners” in the recent Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby... Read more »

WHIP (NOT) SMART

July 10, 2025

GROUP ONE winning jockey Gary Carroll was left in the doldrums after his Royal Ascot victory aboard the Joe Murphy-trained Cercene in the... Read more »

FAST CARS AND HORSES

July 10, 2025

SOME HEAVY going on the tarmac for a couple of Irish jockeys recently. Four-time UK champion jockey Oisín Murphy was fined £70,000 and... Read more »

OLLIE’S ARMY

June 26, 2025

IT WAS just like old times recently when the Magnier family plus its Coolmore entourage teamed up with one Ollie Sangster for racecourse... Read more »

COLIN KEANE’S ASCOT CARD

June 26, 2025

JOCKEY Colin Keane’s new retainer with Juddmonte got off to the best start with a facile victory aboard the John and Thady Gosden-trained... Read more »

MAGNIER’S NEW WORLD

June 12, 2025

DISCONTENT WITH Coolmore’s near stranglehold on Irish racing had been a talking point at bloodstock sales in recent seasons but that has all... Read more »