Postmodern

With the exception of Ballydoyle's hot prospect 2-year-old Albert Einstein, there are no key figures missing from Royal Ascot's opening card on Tuesday and the scene is set for the first of the week's moments of truth. With the St James's Palace featuring the winners of the 2,000 Guineas, Irish 2,000 Guineas and "French 2,000 Guineas" and the Queen Anne boasting all the elite milers of Europe and a bit extra, the standard has been met again in the year which celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Royal Procession. From...

The furore surrounding the changes to the Listed Windsor Castle Stakes shows no signs of abating, but for this year at least the six two-year-old races at Royal Ascot remain much as they've always been, which is beneficial for trends followers studying the data in an attempt to find winners next week. We lost one of the so-called bankers when Albert Einstein, last seen winning the G3 Marble Hill Stakes at the Curragh, was ruled out of the meeting due to a sprained joint, but his absence shouldn't detract too...

Bloodstock agent Mike Ryan has picked out dozens of Grade I winners over the years. He has also bred Grade I winners, most notably Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming (Bodemeister) and his half-sister Hot Dixie Chick (Dixie Union), and he's even raced a few, including 2008 GI Spinaway Stakes victress Mani Bhavan (Storm Boot) and 2019 GI United Nations Stakes winner (Tiz Wonderful) But this year's GI Gamely Stakes marked a particularly special victory for Ryan when 'TDN Rising Star' Be Your Best (Ire) (Muhaarar {GB}), a horse that he...

Poor old Kingman, eh? It was his bad luck to pitch up at Banstead Manor Stud in the year that all the fuss was about Frankel's first yearlings. Much of the interest in the intervening decade has been about Frankel, too, but that hasn't stopped Kingman laying down his own markers in achievement at stud, highlighted this past weekend with a one-two in the Irish 2,000 Guineas via Field Of Gold and Cosmic Year.  They are not by any means his first star performers - Persian King first held that...