As another jumps season draws to a close for racing fans, it’s difficult to know where attention should be focussed. Perhaps it should be on Nicky Henderson, who has beaten off pre-eminent handler Paul Nicholls […]
Festival fever for racing fans as Cheltenham approaches
Here we go again then. On Tuesday at 1:30pm at Cheltenham, horse racing’s biggest week of the year gets underway with 28 races of the highest quality to keep fans enthralled and engaged over the […]
Depleted field won’t affect spectacle of The Festival
The issue of ‘absent friends’ can often overshadow a sporting event. Regularly an injury or suspension will overshadow a major fixture to the extent that more people are bothered about who isn’t in attendance than […]
A new King is crowned at Kempton Park
As always it’s a been a busy few days for horse racing with the usual array of post-Christmas treats for followers of the sport up and down the country. Here The Gryphon’s resident turf enthusiast John Gibby […]
Racing world pulls together for Tylicki
Perhaps one of the most unconsidered factors about sport is the physical demand on those who take part in it, and the dangers that sportspeople face through putting their bodies through immense pressure every day. […]
Melbourne glory for Almandin and McEvoy
Britain’s wait for a winner in Australia’s biggest race continued this week, as Almandin won the Melbourne Cup for trainer Robert Hickmott and jockey Kerrin McEvoy. The seven-year-old gelding was sent after the leaders just […]
Amazing Aidan Asserts in European Showpiece
“It’s not a race, it’s a landmark” – the slogan of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. A pun that works in English as well as the original French, and it really does say it […]
The Gryphon Meets Philip Hobbs
ALTHOUGH I haven’t yet met Balthazar King, one day I hope I will get the opportunity to share a carrot with a horse that epitomises the sport of National Hunt racing. Horses may all look […]
LGBT History Month: Role Models Matter
SPORT has a special way of bringing people together. The Christmas Truce of 1914 is a powerful and moving image – uniting two entirely different (and seemingly irreconcilable) groups together in the most serious and high-pressured […]
Finally A Queen of Melbourne
THE Melbourne Cup, the richest race in the Southern Hemisphere, also known as the ‘race that stops the nation’, produced a huge shock on Tuesday morning when 100/1 chance Prince of Penzance stormed home to […]
Horse racing running itself into the ground
In a week where the British government voted to change its archaic policy towards equal marriage, this wave of modernisation should be extended to reforming horse racing which is fast becoming a blood sport, writes […]