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April 4 Tomorrow’s Grade 1 Mersey Novices’ Hurdle is the perfect hors d’oeuvres for the Grand National, and the race often throws up a future superstar, with the likes of Best [...]

April 3 We have four runners at Aintree today but three of them come in the same race, the William Hill Handicap Hurdle. Owner-amateur rider David Maxwell obviously takes the mount on Off The [...]

April 2 The Barbury team are virtually 50-50 between Flat and jumpers, and I was impressed with the way 10-furlong specialist Brioni did a sharp breeze up the hill when I joined Alan on the [...]

March 30 With The Doyen Chief coping admirably with the switch back to a left-hand circuit when winning at Warwick, and both Paradias and Tritonic coming through their Good Friday prep-races at [...]

March 27 I am old enough to remember when the Rosebery Handicap and Queen’s Prize were the flagship races at Kempton’s big Easter week-end meeting, when the Sunbury course raced on [...]

March 20 Don’t Mind If I Do, runner-up to the smart Regent’s Stroll in the Goffs Hundred Grand bumper at Newbury’s final jumps meeting of last season, is back at the Berkshire [...]

March 20 We had an exciting bunch of bumper horses last season, giving us hope that one or two of them would make above-average novice hurdlers this winter, and one example its Ski Lodge, who [...]

March 15 Second-season novices have a good record in the Coral Gold Cup – still referred to locally at Newbury as the Hennessy – and Alan hopes that this week’s Cheltenham third [...]

March 13 Here’s hoping that Lady Luck deals us a better hand on day three of the Cheltenham Festival than it did on Tuesday, when the chief sufferer in what was a ludicrous ragged start to [...]

March 11 February was an even more miserable month than usual for Alan, with many of the Barbury team under a cloud when a bug spread through the yard. However, there was a noticeable spring back [...]