Robin Oakley

He didn’t quite tap the side of his nose but, looking around and dropping his voice, one of the best-connected racecourse informants I know greeted me at Cheltenham on Saturday with the news: ‘Alan King has got the sniffles in his yard.’ Striking a line through all the inmates of King’s Barbury Castle Stables on

Every sport needs renewal and the most heartening thing about this jumping season is the growing prominence of a bunch of comparatively new, comparatively young trainers. A little older than some is the phenomenon John Ferguson. Moonlighting from his worldwide role as Sheikh Mohammed’s chief bloodstock adviser on the Flat, he has set up as

I am sorry but if anybody else asks, ‘Did you have a good Christmas?’ they are in danger of me dotting them one. I arrived back with Mrs O. from two weeks lecturing abroad to discover that the neighbour to whom we had lent one house key could not find it. The builder holding the

Racing brings in all sorts. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie came by the family route. He used to help his blind father write out his bets every Saturday and the family would be shushed into silence as the racing results were read out on the radio. One Saturday the results were delayed for a

When he was awarded the Cartier award of merit for his lifetime contribution to racing, trainer Barry Hills insisted that racing should continue to be fun, and if that meant a little bit of skulduggery then so what. It drew the biggest applause of the evening. It has been a bizarre year for the racing

As she walked towards a Palace dining room once in company with the playwright Noël Coward, the late Queen Mother noted his gaily lascivious eye flickering over the Guardsmen lining the stairs. ‘No, Noël,’ she admonished him before he had spoken. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you. They count them before they put them out.’

Here is one for the experts at pub-quiz racing nights: which well-known jumps trainer has scored twice at Royal Ascot without yet registering training a winner at the Cheltenham Festival? Answer: Paul Webber. His glorious Cropredy Lawn yard near Banbury turns out a stream of decent hurdlers and chasers most winters — think of Flying

Two weeks ago I was in Quebec lecturing on, among other things, politicians and drink. The best moment in my research was encountering a Canadian blogger who declared, ‘We’ve had more abstainers than drunks in our Prime Minister’s office. The country has been reasonably well run, but Jeez, it’s been dull.’ It certainly hasn’t been

Trainer Sir Mark Prescott once noted that the greyhound races for the anticipated pleasure of sinking its teeth into a fluffy white bunny tail ahead. The human athlete races for the hope of fame and riches. But what’s in it, he asked,  for the horse? One thing that has been in it for the racehorse

Seeing me leaving the races early one day recently a friend inquired why. ‘Got to finish some painting,’ I replied. ‘Oh, really,’ he said in surprise. ‘Do you do watercolours or oils?’ I would have said, ‘No, walls,’ but he might then have imagined I did murals, so I had to explain that, surrounded as

It is not only the Arabs who have an intimate, almost mystical involvement with the horse. In Istanbul for the Topkapi Trophy, sitting beside the largest kebab I have ever seen (and, I kid you not, it was more than 12 feet long), I was reminded by my genial host Mehmet Kurt that the horse

The lovely thing about Hayley Turner is the girl-next-door quality which she retains despite having become Britain’s highest-profile woman jockey. But while she still sounds genuinely surprised about her achievements her steady gaze reflects the inner confidence she has always needed to mix it with the boys. Most stables in the country would have to

I could not understand on Saturday why a fairly standard Newbury card had brought so many vehicles on to the approach roads. All was explained when I saw a group of merry ladies pulling knickers out of their handbags and comparing them. The old Welsh belter Tom Jones was appearing on stage after the day’s

Qatar at Goodwood Goodwood works. No course in Britain looks prettier on a summer’s day. No course in Britain feeds the media better. Trainers agree that no one looks after 300-year-old turf better than Goodwood’s Clerk of the Course Seamus Buckley. And Goodwood always has an eye to tasteful innovation — the first course to

Some alien force keeps attacking my laptop. Every few seconds my anti-virus security system pings me with an audible warning of attempted forced entry, a process which paralyses all thought and makes working in a library impossible. It clearly isn’t a hacker from the News of the World, so who could it be? My wildest

Lambourn trainer Sylvester Kirk retains the distinctive tones of his native Donegal/Tyrone. There was just one moment during his eight years as assistant to Richard Hannon, a period which coincided with the Troubles in Northern Ireland, when he wondered if the accent was going to leave him alive. Deputed to drive the Hannons to Windsor

Never have I lost so much money in a week or more enjoyed the process of doing so, at least until Mrs Oakley sees the size of the cheque I will be writing my bookmaker. Such is the competitiveness of Royal Ascot, I shall explain, that the only certainty of the week is that the