Category Archives: News

After a year of sport (and society in general!) that is better best forgotten, it’s a relief that once again the little things we took all too readily for granted – such as attending live sports – are now back on the agenda, with racing being well in the mix. Even casual sports fans are aware of the big UK races, which surely speaks to the audience that horse racing is able to reach. I’d wager that those with only a passing interest in racing would have an awareness of these big three:

The Grand National

Who can deny that the Grand National (10th April 2021) is the jewel in the crown, or not only UK racing, but the worldwide racing scene. Steeped in centuries of history and with television audiences into the hundreds of millions, the Grand National attracts top tier competitors from far and wide and a win in this most prestigious of races is not only financially lucrative but also a career maker. The equivalent of having your name, whether jockey, horse or trainer, into the history books. It was a crying shame that in 2020 we had to make do with the sorry spectacle that is the Virtual Grand National, though in this online age it’s at least possible at the click of a mouse button to watch some of the legends of the Grand National such as West Tip and Tiger Roll.

Cheltenham Festival

The crowds Cheltenham Roar signals the start of the Cheltenham Festival and interestingly enough that was the last significant crowd participation moment before the 2020 Covid lockdown came to be. The Cheltenham Festival (16th – 19th March 2021) offers a lot of bang for your racing buck in that it gives racing fans the chance to watch four days of top quality racing action, featuring Group One races we all know and love such as the Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase and of course the Cheltenham Gold Cup, one of the most respected National Hunt races in the country with a purse of £625,000.  Golden Miller, Arkle, Kauto Star, Al Boum Photo, are all household names either in part or largely due to their Cheltenham Gold Cup successes. The Festival also brings us Ladies Day. There’s something for everyone!

Royal Ascot

Last but not least on our list of races / festivals that we all know and love comes Royal Ascot. Again a festival that goes back hundreds of years (to 1768, or 1807 if we’re to include the Gold Cup format), this five day event which has the royal stamp of approval (and even starts with a Royal Procession by the Royal Family) is Britain’s most valuable race meeting, with prize money not far short of £8,000,000. 18 group  races feature, 8 of which are group one races. As you can imagine many dress to impress at such an event and that adds to the appeal of the whole spectacle. Highly anticipated races at Royal Ascot include the Queen Anne Stakes on Tuesday, Prince of Wales Stakes on Wednesday, Gold Cup on Thursday, Coronation Stakes on Friday and the Diamond Jubilee Stakes on Saturday.

There’s a packed card at Leopardstown on Saturday September 11. The feature race is the Group 1 Irish Champions Stakes run over a mile and two furlongs with the going forecasted to be Good to Firm.

This is a race for horses aged three years and over, with the first home winning €570,000. It’s due to start at 2.45pm with some lucrative sign up offers by UK horse racing betting sites. William Hill offers free bets to all new accounts during this race.

The past two years has seen this race run by the Aidan O’Brien trained Magical. No hat-trick is possible as that runner has now retired though the trainer might get one.

Who will win the 2021 Irish Champion Stakes? Three-year-old St Marks Basilica is the 6/4 favourite and is the top contender for Aidan O’Brien. All three of his races have been won this year. After winning the Dewhurst Stakes as a two-year-old, 2021 began with success in a Group 3 success at Longchamp.

June saw another win in France, this time in Chantilly. This time it was the Group 1 Qatar Prix du Jockey Club that was landed, and it was over a mile and two furlongs. St Marks Basilica returned to England in July to win the Group 1 Coral Eclipse at Sandown again over a mile and two furlongs. This will be his first race on Good to Firm going but it’s going to take a supreme effort to deny him victory according to The Sun.

The second favourite is the five-year-old Tarnawa, trained by Dermot Weld. This contender is available at 2/1 and is bidding to win a sixth successive race. Only one of those has been this year though. Tarnawa won the Group 3 Grant Thornton Ballyroan Stakes at Leopardstown but was upset before the race and unseated his jockey, Colin Keane. Once settled down, Tarnawa justified odds of 1/2 and won by six and a half lengths, after being off the course for 271 days.

Notable wins last year were the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf, when beating Magical. That followed two Group 1 and one Group 3 races in an extremely productive 2020. Tarnawa has to give the favourite 3lbs, so it’ll take a mighty effort to win another Group 1 race.

Poetic Flare is 7/2 and the next odds after that are 10/1, so bookies clearly see this as a three-horse race. This Jim Bolger runner and is aged three years. It’s been a busy year, and this is Poetic Flare’s eighth race of 2021, informs nagshead.co.uk.

Three of them have been won, most famously the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket on the first day of May. Later that month the classic winning horse went to Longchamp and finished sixth behind St Marks Basilica. After just failing to win the Irish 2000 Guineas, Poetic Flare was then a four length winner of the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot.

His last two races have both seen him finish second in Group 1 races, most recently behind Palace Pier at Deauville on August 15.

Last years’ Oaks winner is also in this race. Love is aged four now and has to give 3lbs to both St Marks Basilica and Poetic Flare. This Aidan O’Brien runner has finished third in her last two races but drops back to a mile and two furlongs here. Last time when running over that distance, Love won the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot this year. With odds of 10/1 a place in this race might well be possible.

 

Nowadays best known as racing correspondent at the ‘Daily Telegraph’, Marcus Armytage was, nonetheless, an accomplished amateur jockey, who rode 100 winners between 1981 and 2000. Indeed, ‘Mr. M. Armytage’, as his name appeared on the race card, recorded three victories at the Cheltenham Festival, winning the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup on Tug Of Gold and the National Hunt Chase Challenge Cup on Keep Talking in 1992 and the latter race, again, on Christmas Gorse in 1994.

However, Armytage rose to prominence when, in 1990, he rode Mr. Frisk to win the Grand National and, in so doing, became the last amateur jockey to win the celebrated steeplechase. On unseasonably firm going, the eleven-year-old tracked Uncle Merlin as far as Becher’s Brook on the second circuit, at which point the leader parted company with his jockey, Hywel Davies. Left in the lead, Mr. Frisk made the best of his way home and, although challenged by Durham Edition on the famously long run-in, held on well to win by three-quarters of length in a new course record time. Even more remarkably, Mr. Frisk and Armytage turned out again for the Whitbread Gold Cup at Sandown Park three weeks later and won again, making all the running to beat Durham Edition by eight lengths.

Born in Oxford in 1964, Marcus Armytage is the son of late dual Scottish National-winning trainer Roddy Armytage, who was based in East Isley, near Lambourn, Berkshire. Armytage Jnr. was still a student at Eton College when he had his first ride in public, failing to complete the course on the 13-year-old Brown Jock, trained by his father, in the Peter Cazalet Challenge Trophy Chase at Plumpton on November 21, 1981. However, his father did provide him with his first winner, Rocamist, in the Shutlanger Chase at Towester on February 15, 1984.