We are in the midst of a global pandemic unprecedented in modern times. The global stock market is plummeting. Lives are being lost before their time right across the globe, numbers compounding by the day.  A trivial question emerges–but an acutely important one for those in our industry–who is going to buy our horses? The [...]

Horse deaths in U.S. racing. Poor prize-money in the UK. Declining attendances in Ireland. Finding good news in horse racing globally right now is like getting lightning in a bottle. Our sport needs a stiff drink. The solution might be whiskey in the jar. In the same way that horse racing once dominated the sporting [...]

Queen Victoria had a problem–the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, had taken a pioneering interest in the merits of Irish fillies. The 19-year-old prince had begun a brief but passionate dalliance with Nellie Clifden, an Irish actress, while he was spending 10 weeks with the Grenadier Guards in Kildare. A concerned Queen decided [...]

John Oxx and Patrick Prendergast announcing that they are joining training forces has rightly been received to great acclaim. The combination of the trainer of Sea The Stars (Ire) with the man who expertly guided last year's Cartier 2-Year-Old Filly Award winner Skitter Scatter (Scat Daddy) will bring a new dimension to racecourses in 2019 [...]

“Fair warning–are you sure madam? Last time then. Sold on the telephone for £860,000.” A Galileo (Ire) yearling? No–Girl With Balloon, a spray paint and acrylic on canvas, mounted on board, in the artist's frame. The highest price ever achieved for a work by the famed, if anonymous, graffiti artist Banksy, at Sotheby's Contemporary Art [...]

If racing was given a time machine for some inspirational travel, where should we go? After a pit stop to buy Northern Dancer from E.P. Taylor for his reserve of $25,000 at the 1962 yearling sales, I'd suggest an unlikely destination–Edinburgh, 1947. The flux capacitor would transport us to meet eight uninvited theatre companies who [...]

One year, five months, and five days. The difference in time between the two defining moments in a lifetime of racing, the birth of Sheikh Mohammed and John Magnier. To understand tomorrow's racing pioneers, where does it begin for our two greatest? Sheikh Mohammed rode bareback races with his friends on the sands of Jumeirah [...]

Incentives are the hidden foundations of global racing. Ownership incentives are the reason why one in every 244 Australians is a racehorse owner. Stallion tax incentives are the reason why the Irish stallion industry grew to be a world leader. Betting incentives are the reason why the Hong Kong Jockey Club is the largest taxpayer [...]

How did you make the decision to go to the races for the first time? Had you read about the sport and was your interest sparked? Had you a friend who was passionate about racing? Perhaps your family was involved in horses? No matter your journey to the sport, there is one universal truth in [...]

What if I told you the use of a single technology in racing could tackle overproduction, transform our integrity issues and take our sport to the next generation of racegoers? What if I told you that this technology was, in effect, walking around the ring without reserve and was available free to us all? What [...]