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Sport of Kings

LEOPARDSTOWN’S TOUGH GOING

January 10, 2019

LEOPARDSTOWN’S Christmas Festival was by and large a very successful four days with unseasonally kind weather helping to draw good crowds to witness... Read more »

MARK WALSH’S MISTAKE

December 13, 2018

MARK WALSH, the expected heir to the throne as number one jockey to JP McManus, was not the darling of punters recently after... Read more »

MICK O’LEARY’S CLEAN SWEEP

December 13, 2018

GIGGINSTOWN HOUSE Stud has taken more steps towards total domination of the jumps game in recent weeks. This was particularly evident when Michael... Read more »

BARRY CONNELL’S BAD LUCK

December 13, 2018
BARRY CONNELL and his trainer, Alan Fleming, are finding winners scarce these days and it was presumably frustrating to be stripped of one they... Read more »

JOHN BUTLER’S BANJAXED HORSE

December 13, 2018

NEWMARKET-BASED Irish trainer John Butler has found himself in hot water with the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), which has suspended his trainer’s licence... Read more »

John Magnier has been thrust into the spotlight thanks to a legal dispute over the 750-acre Barne Estate in Tipperary, while Moya Doherty had a problem with her neighbour.

GOING GETS TOUGH AT GOFFS

November 29, 2018

THESE ARE testing times for a lot of people in the bloodstock industry and breeders were recently reminded that there is no demand... Read more »

HENRY BEEBY’S HEADACHE

November 29, 2018

IT IS not only breeders who took a hiding at the sales as the reduction in demand clearly hit the auction houses. Turnover... Read more »

BRYAN COOPER’S LATEST CHANCE

November 29, 2018

BRYAN COOPER’S career as a jockey is sometimes compared to a rollercoaster ride and the Kerryman could find himself on the way back... Read more »

CRISTINA PATINO’S NINE NAGS

November 29, 2018

WHEN A flat yearling is sold at public auction, it qualifies for a programme of two-year-old maiden races the following year, restricted to... Read more »

WHIPPING UP A STORM

November 15, 2018

AS ANIMAL rights escalate further up the agenda, it looks like racing’s culture is going to have to get its house in order.... Read more »

LUKE COMER’S COLTS

November 15, 2018

LUKE COMER’S long-running quest to train a winner continues, but the developer has upped his game recently, spending freely on fresh blood. At... Read more »

ELLIOTT BACKS SAMCRO

November 15, 2018

SO, WHAT to do with Samcro? Hailed by Davy Russell last year as the second coming, trainer Gordon Elliott fanned the flames of... Read more »

JIM MARTIN’S HEADACHE

November 15, 2018

ANOTHER all-weather track is on the cards for Ireland, with plans at an advanced stage for an artificial racing surface to be installed... Read more »

GER LYONS HITS OUT

November 1, 2018

THE DRY autumn is taking its toll on jumps tracks at the moment as they cannot risk watering the ground at this time... Read more »

O’BRIEN’S REDUNDANT REFERRAL

November 1, 2018

JOSEPH O’BRIEN found himself at the centre of one of the most pointless enquiries in the recent history of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory... Read more »

DOWN A ROYAL MESS

November 1, 2018

WHAT TO make of the Down Royal fiasco? The clash of business and sport looks set to leave some casualties, but confusion reigns.... Read more »

ELLIOTT IS WELL OFF THE PACE

November 1, 2018

IT SEEMS Gordon Elliott may already have accepted defeat in this season’s leading trainer title race. A slow start to the current season... Read more »

BHA CRACKS THE WHIP

October 18, 2018

PATRICK MULLINS found himself the subject of some unwanted attention recently, when his winning ride aboard his father’s Rathvinden in the National Hunt... Read more »

MELISSA MARGOLIS MAKES WAVES

October 18, 2018

WHEN THE Gordon Elliott-trained Kuiper Belt landed the valuable Lartigue Hurdle at Listowel last month, it gave fledgling owner Melissa Margolis her biggest... Read more »

CONROY’S FLASHY PROFIT

October 18, 2018

WHILE THE moolah being splashed out at Goffs showed that the going is very good these days, the market for bloodstock remains selective... Read more »

ABDULAZIZ UPS THE ANTE

October 18, 2018

IT WILL be recalled (see The Phoenix, 29/6/18) that Phoenix Thoroughbreds supremo Amer Abdulaziz pledged this year at Royal Ascot to develop his... Read more »

BABY JOSEPH IS IN THE PINK

October 4, 2018

THE SUCCESS of the Joseph O’Brien-trained Baby Pink in a valuable listed race in Galway recently was an interesting one when one delves... Read more »

GODOLPHIN SPLASHES OUT

October 4, 2018

THE REBUILDING of relations between the behemoths of global racing Coolmore and Godolphin continues apace with mutual support of each entity’s top stallions... Read more »

PAT KELLY’S COBALT CASE

October 4, 2018

IT HAS been a tough couple of weeks at the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB), with a number of referral cases heard covering... Read more »

GER LYONS’S GRIPE

October 4, 2018

IRISH CHAMPIONS weekend was again deemed a success, with some thrilling finishes, good weather and a few breakthrough Group 1 wins for some... Read more »

JAMIE OSBORNE’S DEADLINE

September 20, 2018

ENGLISH TRAINER Jamie Osborne’s annual pilgrimage to Laytown Races with his enthusiastic owners, The Melbourne 10, bore fruit again when the team bagged... Read more »

FIXTURE LIST OFF COURSE?

September 20, 2018

AFTER MUCH pondering, Brian Kavanagh’s Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) has released the fixture list for 2019 and it is one that has stimulated... Read more »

TOM QUEALLY UNSADDLED

September 20, 2018

SPARE A thought for jockey Tom Queally, who lost the ride on The Tin Man a few days before the James Fanshawe-trained gelding... Read more »

NO LUCK FOR THE WAGGS

September 20, 2018

WHEN THE lowly rated Eight And Bob was declared to run at Navan recently, he was bound to attract interest as the five... Read more »

MICK O’LEARY OFFLOADS TO YANKS

September 6, 2018

MICK O’LEARY certainly isn’t getting soft about his horses as he gets older; two old Gigginstown stalwarts who won’t be retiring to a... Read more »

BARRY CONNELL’S NEW STRATEGY

September 6, 2018

BARRY CONNELL has shuffled his pack again and has dispensed with the services of his former retained jockey, Denis O’Regan. The pair enjoyed... Read more »

DEREK MCGRATH’S BIG PICTURE

September 6, 2018

THE FACT that the Curragh Racecourse has stayed open for business while being developed may not have been a bad idea in hindsight.... Read more »

PETER FAHEY’S GOOD GAMBLE

September 6, 2018

A TIP of the hat to Monasterevin trainer Peter Fahey, who recently executed a significant gamble with military precision. Fahey’s newcomer, Gypsy Island,... Read more »

COOLMORE’S ONE THAT GOT AWAY

August 23, 2018

It’s not often the Coolmore team get it spectacularly wrong about a horse, but even the best of us are prone to the... Read more »

MARTIN’S BASE ON THE MARKET

August 23, 2018

Tony Martin’s trying season could take a turn for the worse next month if Arodstown Stables, his current training base, sells at auction.... Read more »

TESTING TIMES AT THE TOTE

August 23, 2018

When Horse Racing Ireland announced its half-year statistics last month, it did so before the Galway festival – a week that serves as... Read more »