Newmarket

The leading Irish trainer also revealed plans for Breeders' Cup winner Balantina, 2,000 Guineas contender A Boy Named Susie and more The temperatures are rising and so too are Donnacha O'Brien's hopes of bagging yet another top-flight success this season, with the gifted young handler revealing that A Boy Named Susie (Starspangledbanner) is on course to run in the 2,000 Guineas - however, Breeders' Cup heroine Balantina (Ten Sovereigns) will not be seen until Royal Ascot at the earliest.  But first, O'Brien is plotting an audacious tilt at the lucrative Chairman's...

Aidan O'Brien heaped praise on Albert Einstein at a Ballydoyle press morning on Monday and described the unbeaten Wootton Bassett colt as his number one hope heading into the new season. Albert Einstein is a general 7-1 favourite for the 2,000 Guineas. He also holds a Derby entry, for which he is a best-priced 20-1 shot.  However, O'Brien acknowledged that Albert Einstein, who has recorded both of his wins over six furlongs, is not certain to stay a mile.  O'Brien said, "The number one at the moment is Albert -...

Tattersalls will extend its sponsorship of the G1 Middle Park Stakes, G1 Cheveley Park Stakes and G2 Royal Lodge Stakes for a further two years after sponsoring the races for the first time in 2025. Taking place on the final day of the Cambridgeshire meeting at Newmarket on Saturday, September 26, the races will be run as the Tattersalls Middle Park Stakes, Tattersalls Sceptre Sessions Cheveley Park Stakes and Tattersalls Online Royal Lodge Stakes. The three races add to an already substantial portfolio of sponsorships for Tattersalls, with other high-profile...

Like London buses, James Keane will have not one but two runners this week in quick succession, marking his first two appearances on the racecourse as trainer. The 32-year-old Irishman now claims Newmarket as his home, rather extraordinarily falling in love with the place during a winter which included the fierce 'Beast from the East' cold snap of eight years ago. If you can withstand winters in Newmarket, then the other seasons will be a doddle. "You have to be a bit of a glutton for punishment to be a...

After an announcement that starting letters would be harmonised across sales companies in 2026, a change in position by one of those sales companies has resulted in a revision to the Tattersalls Group's starting letters for this year. All Tattersalls sales in Newmarket will are catalogued alphabetically, either by lot name or dam name and will remain on F, apart from the Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale which will revert to its unique starting letter of K. Tattersalls Ireland will revert to starting letter P for Flat sales at Fairyhouse and...

If you bump into Edmond Mahony over the next few days at Park Paddocks and congratulate him on his ITBA Wild Geese Award, the chances are that it will be greeted with mild embarrassment and an assertion that there are other more deserving recipients out there. Mahony is famously averse to fuss. He has, equally famously, guided the good ship Tattersalls to extraordinary growth, even through some choppy waters, in his long-running tenure as chairman. There was the not insignificant matter of a global pandemic which somehow the bloodstock sector...

Shamardal's Soft Cover, in foal to Champion First-Season Sire Starman, is one of 307 lots in the Tattersalls February Sale catalogue. The sale, slated for Thursday, February 5 through Friday, February 6, will also feature the Tattersalls British EBF Stallion Parade & RoR Showcase at 11 a.m. Consisting of 106 fillies and mares in/out of training, 16 broodmares, 161 colts and geldings in/out of training, 15 yearlings and nine two-year-olds, the two-day sale will begin at 12:30 p.m. on Thursday and 10 a.m. on Friday. Besides Soft Cover (lot 24),...

We have turned the tables on our obituary and feature writer John Berry, who doubles as the master of Beverley House Stables and Newmarket's unofficial weather man. A terrible singer, he gave up the possibility of a life as a theologian to train racehorses. How did you become involved in racing in the first place? I was lucky enough to grow up on a farm in Scotland where we had horses and ponies, and with parents passionately involved in racing, with the Sporting Life on the table every day and...

Each Christmas, Kempton hosts the most important day of jump racing in the British calendar outside the Cheltenham and Aintree Festivals. It's a racecourse synonymous with the great names of this sport - Kauto Star, Desert Orchid, Wayward Lad, One Man. Yet Friday's compelling edition of the King George VI Chase crouches under extinction's peak - and we've learned it's been huddled in that brace position for the past seven years due to the wilful actions of its owners, the Jockey Club. Most people thought any immediate threat to Kempton,...

Oli Rix, the most recent addition to the training ranks in Newmarket, harbours dreams of sending out a breakthrough winner with Trouble Man before the year is out. The 31-year-old, who has spent time working with Andrew Balding, Chris Waller and most recently Roger Varian, has assembled a team of 15 horses to run in his debut season from Bedford House Stables. Trouble Man was a 31,000gns purchase by Rix at the Tattersalls Autumn Horses-In-Training Sale and, with the benefit of a recent pipe-opener under his belt, his young trainer...

Approaching Christmas four years ago, a still slightly gawky chestnut two-year-old jumped from the stalls for his debut in the 1m3f British Stallion Studs EBF Novice Stakes and had to be rousted along by his jockey just to remain in touch with the rest of the field. In last place around the first bend and along the back stretch, he looked as though his 100/1 starting price was justified. But then he woke up. And on the home turn and down the straight he started to scythe through his opponents...

Alice Haynes, who began training in Newmarket almost five years ago, has announced that she is to cease with immediate effect, citing that "racing's current financial model does not make it viable to continue". In a statement released on social media, Haynes, 34, said, "Tonight at Chelmsford I will saddle my final runners as a trainer. It's a sentence I never imagined I would have to say. Stepping away from something that has shaped my days and captured my heart has been an incredibly painful decision but the truth is...