An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Is there anything left which hasn’t been overtaken by climate change drivel? In my spare time I serve as chairman of a village cricket club in East Anglia: a club which I and others, against the grain of the contracting world of village cricket, have succeeded in setting up from scratch over the past dozen
The jumps season is well under way and I am delighted to be tipping chasers and hurdlers again for the first time in six months. I particularly enjoy backing course specialists over the Grand National fences at Aintree and so the Boylesport Grand Sefton Handicap Chase is just up my street. In last year’s contest
I have a policy of not betting or tipping on jump racing until at least the first week of November. That’s because the early season form over chases and hurdles is so difficult to predict in that it is hard to know which horses are fit from their summer break and which are not. Having
In the days when Spitting Image was funny it featured a song called ‘I’ve Never Met A Nice South African’. In fairness it was in 1986, long before the end of apartheid, though the sentiments would have chimed with the feelings of most English sports fans at the weekend. In the end South Africa was
Not for the first time on Champions Day at Ascot, the ground tomorrow looks likely to be very soft and it is essential to back horses that can handle the conditions. All the better, too, if they have strong course form as the sand-based track is not liked by all horses – even those that
England looked fortified by their Himalayan break on Tuesday, bouncing back from a depressing defeat to New Zealand, to despatch Bangladesh by a margin of 137 runs in Dharamshala. In hindsight, England were conspicuously superior and the match a little one-sided, with Bangladesh’s batting intimidated by the steepling bounce achieved by the very tall Reece
Tomorrow’s Club Godolphin Cesarewitch Handicap (Newmarket, 2.40 p.m.) is worth more than £100,000 to the winner and it is always a highly competitive affair. As usual, the substantial prize money has attracted several runners from the other side of the Irish Sea and it is not hard to see why one of them, Pied Piper,
Has there ever been an athlete, male or female, quite like Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time? She is like something from another planet, so out of this world are the body-bending tricks she can accomplish on the floor, vault and bars. These are incomprehensible feats of agility, strength and grace, which were
Last Thursday’s opening game of the Cricket World Cup saw England roundly thrashed in Ahmedabad, by what looked on paper to be a fairly average New Zealand. Posting a stuttering 282 for nine off 50 overs, England threatened to dominate but too often threw wickets away. Jonny Bairstow clipped the second ball of the innings
Research tells us that a horse typically peaks in terms of speed and performance at the aged of four or five and deteriorates after that. But there are plenty of exceptions to the rule. Indeed, for some thoroughbreds, age really is just a number. Personally, because the horse spent time stabled near me when I
The last three winners of the Bet365 Cambridgeshire have triumphed at odds of 40-1, 40-1 again and 25-1. Earlier this century there were even bigger priced winners: 100-1 in 2004 and 50-1 in 2017. So don’t be surprised if the race throws up another shock result tomorrow (Newmarket 3.40 p.m.). I have already put up
At last the Ryder Cup is here – well, in Rome – and with it Europe’s biennial chance to stick it to the Americans in a sport that matters in a format that we can all relate to. Even if you regard golfers as extremely well-off people largely determined to make themselves better off, the
It’s now five years since he finally stepped down as the manager of Arsenal FC after two decades at the helm – an occasion marked by the recent unveiling of a statue outside the Emirates Stadium of a triumphant Arsene Wenger holding aloft the Premier League trophy. The occasion made me reflect on his tenure at
Picture the scene. I’m in the New Forest, riding in a bicycle race. It looks like I’m on course for a personal best, perhaps even first place. I’m well-fuelled and feeling strong. Then I hit traffic. The road is too narrow to slip alongside the line of five or six cars in front of me.
The Arc weekend at Longchamp – well worth a visit if you have never been racing in France – is just over a week away and now seems a good time to place a couple of bets at this most prestigious of meetings. Set on the outskirts of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne, Longchamp
Top owners are quitting horse racing because bookmakers nervous of a government and a Gambling Commission that know remarkably little about the horse-racing industry and ignore even the modicum they do know are making it harder and harder for them to have a significant bet, closing the accounts of those who refuse to acquiesce to
When John Lumley was a baby, his mother placed him in his carrycot at one end of the tennis court in the leafy village of Holyport in Berkshire, and drove balls at him. I should clarify that John was perfectly safe. The tennis in question was real tennis: the old-fashioned version of the game, which
Cast your minds back to 2005, a time when it was considered cool to record your favourite song to use as a ringtone on your phone, iPod Nanos were everywhere, the Crazy Frog drove every parent in the country crazy, and Ronaldinho was named the best football player on the planet. A lot has changed
The Saturday of Doncaster’s St Leger meeting offers something for everyone: the fifth and final ‘classic’ of the season and a ridiculously competitive sprint handicap for starters, with much more besides. I will start by looking at the Group 1 Betfred St Leger (tomorrow 3.35 p.m.), which is the longest flat racing classic over a
‘What are you still doing here?’ joked Daniil Medvedev to Novak Djokovic after their US Open tennis final – a lung-busting baseline slugfest featuring jaw-dropping athleticism and brilliant shot-making – had ended in a straight sets win for the Serb. It was his 24th Grand Slam victory. There’s no sign that Djokovic wants to slow
My beloved late father, who was responsible for my love of horse racing, made an annual attempt to land the so-called ‘autumn double’: the two big Newmarket’s handicaps run towards the tail-end of the Flat season. For the best part of half a century, I have followed his lead with a fair degree of success
The last of this season’s big six-furlong sprint handicaps takes place in Scotland three weeks tomorrow. The Virgin Bet Ayr Gold Cup is always a competitive affair with up to 25 runners spread across the course, often splitting into two distinct groups on the near side and the far side of the stands. Last year,
So the end is near… or it certainly will be soon if England’s rugby players carry on trying to do it their way. One thing we can be certain about: England are not going to win the World Cup. There is a chance they might not get out of their group; Argentina are properly good
For political nerds, the revival of Wrexham AFC, under the ownership of Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, has eerie echoes of the history of New Labour. A historic organisation, strongly connected to working-class communities, looks defeated and deflated. A clique of talented smoothies comes along and offers a better tomorrow. Tired of disappointment,
The most likely winner of tomorrow’s Sky Bet Ebor Handicap (3.35 p.m.), the most valuable flat race handicap in Europe, is Sweet William. John and Thady Gosden’s four-year-old gelding is going for a four-timer and he will land a £300,000 first prize if he achieves it. Those canny enough to have bagged fancy prices on
When the nine equine athletes involved in the seven-furlong contest for Newbury’s Saturday highlight, the Group Two BetVictor Hungerford Stakes, strolled around the parade ring there was nowhere else in the world I would have preferred to be. As the sun gleamed off perfectly burnished coats and perfectly toned muscles rippled in sturdy hindquarters I
When you first lay eyes on Morgan’s new Super 3 – a three-wheeled car categorised, intriguingly, as a motorbike in the US – it does take a moment to get your bearings. First, in an age when all cars essentially look the same, this one appears to be back to front. Set wide, two front
York’s Ebor meeting next week is one of the highlights of the racing calendar with four days of quality fare on offer from Wednesday onwards. York is a flat, left-handed track suitable for strong galloping horses yet for some inexplicable reason quite a lot of thoroughbreds fail to act on what should be a fair
Oxford City vs Rochdale at Court Place Farm doesn’t have quite the same ring as Chelsea vs Liverpool at Stamford Bridge, but last Saturday’s match was important all the same. At this level, you feel part of the match, which never happens in an executive box at the Emirates ‘The Hoops’, Oxford’s oldest football club,
