It’s doubtful whether someone could actually create Cheltenham nowadays and if you were building a course from scratch it certainly would not be the template that you would work from. The place is unique and that’s what makes it special and one of the great sporting venues in the UK. Almost a natural amphitheatre the [...]
Most of the Cheltenham festival facts, figures and statistics that people focus on are connected with events on the tracks but here are 10 quirky facts that you may not know about the Festival. They probably won’t help you decide where to place a Cheltenham 2011 free bet, but they should keep you entertained. A [...]
Could the big guns of the Flat racing world be trembling in their boots at the news that the outstanding champion National Hunt trainer Paul Nicholls has applied for a dual purpose training license? Probably not, but it will be very interesting to see how the Ditcheat handler fares when he has his first runners [...]
The Irish love the Cheltenham Festival. In fact, for many Cheltenham enthusiasts the entire Festival revolves around finding the best Irish raiders and getting on-board with the extremely knowledgeable Irish crowd. And many of the early clues for Cheltenham success we presented to us at Leopardstown on Saturday. The most notable of the four winners [...]
The opening race on Lingfield’s all-weather fixture on Friday 21 January is unlikely to be remembered by the majority of racing fans, but will certainly go down as a red-letter day for trainer George Baker, for whom Cape Melody’s victory under Matthew Davies in the six-furlong claimer was Baker’s first since he took over the [...]
The very first Cheltenham Festival took place in 1911 at Prestbury Park, although it would have looked very different from the course that we know and love today and anyone placing Cheltenham 2011 bets may be astounded at the event’s rich history. Gradually Cheltenham came to be known as the headquarters of jump racing under [...]
Shalone, Alan King’s highly promising hurdler of last season, looks set to make his belated return to action this term with an outing at Ascot at the weekend, writes Elliot Slater. Last seen when running very respectably to finish third to Zaynar in the 2009 Relkeel Hurdle at Cheltenham, Shalone had been a pretty hot [...]
If you believe in the power of prayer then you might be able to offer the combined positive thoughts of tens of thousands of horse racing fans as an explanation as to why, despite all expert advice to the contrary, the hugely popular chaser Monet’s Garden is showing early signs of recovery from the normally [...]
Point to point racing is a centuries old horse racing tradition which remains popular today. At times the term has been synonymous with the steeplechase, which even those who aren’t so interested in equestrian sports are familiar with. The first ever point to point race was run in Ireland, in the eighteenth century. The first [...]
I have been aware of horse slaughter since I was a kid. It was a well known fact Thoroughbred ex-race horses that came through the barn had one shot to make it in the hunter/jumper ring (as riding horses). If a horse didn’t stay at the barn, we knew the horse would end up back [...]
