Seven Days

Seven Days: A Good Week If Your Name is Egan

We've been waiting so long for the proper Flat to start that it seems almost criminal to veer straight off to the other side of the world, but there was plenty of interest for breeders from this side at Rosehill in Sydney on Saturday morning.  One person who managed to stay awake past 2am to watch the highly impressive last-to-first romp of Post Impressionist (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) in the G3 N E Manion Cup was his breeder Henrietta Egan, who is based at Corduff Stud with her husband David.  Now...

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Seven Days: Jumping Back to the Flat

Yes, I know. It's a bit early for this, isn't it? We usually have a strict No-Seven-Days rule until the week after the Brocklesby but this winter has dragged on and on and I just can't wait any longer. We have the small matter of the Cheltenham Festival to get through this week, and we'll be giving it our full attention, but as we have counted down the days to the 'The Roar' it has been impossible to ignore the sneaky French getting their Turf season underway with a couple...

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Seven Days: Breeders' Cup Sees Out the Season in Style

So long has this column been disrupted by sales and travel that this final instalment for a Flat season that seems to have whizzed by faster than ever should perhaps be renamed 28 Days. That's not to say that we are giving you four times the value, however. The last week or so has been spent in California at the 40th running of the Breeders' Cup. Any racing event which draws some of the best racehorses from a variety of nations is a treat, and with its 14 Grade 1...

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Seven Days: Bucanero Fuerte Times His Run to Perfection

Most normal people spend some of August at the beach. Bloodstock folk do too, though the spade work involves no bucket, just plenty of prowling around the Arqana sales ground looking at yearlings. There may be the odd oyster here and there at the hospitality suites of various consignors but, make no mistake, this is gruelling work. It's curtain up this Friday for the European yearling sales season, and we all know what that means: Christmas is right around the corner. For breeders and stallion masters, results on the track...

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Seven Days: Hooked on Hukum

It's Goodwood, it's Galway, but this week's column comes to you from Glorious Golspie, 170 miles north of Britain's most northerly racecourse, and roughly the same distance across Scotland from the country's most recent retiree from the training ranks. Keith Dalgleish has packed up his stable at Carluke and moved to Oban in the western Highlands to pursue, at his own choosing, a life outside racing. A successful jockey in his days working for fellow Scot Mark Johnston, and later Scotland's most prolific trainer, Dalgleish will be missed both north...

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Seven Days: The Sophomore Kings

We've a while to wait before any firm conclusions can be drawn about this year's crop of first-season stallions, though Darley's Blue Point (Ire) and Ballyhane Stud's Soldier's Call (GB) are pulling ever clearer in what has developed into something of a duel at the half-way stage of the Flat season. In the Coolmore camp, Calyx (GB) was the first to strike with a group winner when Persian Dreamer won Friday's G2 Duchess of Cambridge S.  As an aside, one wonders how much the clamour to run two-year-olds at Royal...

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Seven Days: A New Force Emerges at Ascot

Pack away your hats and spend a joyful week in jeans and trainers. Royal Ascot was fabulous, as it always is. Though we may have tipped into the meeting being padded with too many handicaps, the results throughout the five days provided plenty of great storylines, even beyond the headline-hogger that is Frankie Dettori.  Unquestionably, though, the best race anywhere in the world in the last week came at Hanshin on Sunday. In the Takarazuka Kinen, Equinox (Jpn) (Kitasan Black {Jpn}) ran the kind of race that few horses can...

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Seven Days: Many Indicators of Success

In the European edition we really shouldn't be overstepping our boundary to encroach on the territory of our American colleagues who did such a fine job in conveying the stories from Belmont Park last week. Racing faces different problems in different jurisdictions and, from an outsider's perspective, it is hard to get fully behind racing in America when a number of its major participants remain overly reliant on medication. But if you read Cynthia Holt's wonderful account of being at Belmont 50 years ago to bear witness to arguably the...

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Seven Days: Churchill's Brightest Hour

Seven years ago Churchill (Ire) beat Mehmas (Ire) in the G1 Goffs Vincent O'Brien National S., and they both now feature prominently in their second careers at stud. For Mehmas, that's nothing new. He was champion first-season sire, then leading second-season sire, and he gave way only to New Bay (GB) last year among his generation. Now with his fourth crop of runners taking to the track, the Tally-Ho Stud resident is back in front among his intake with four group winners to his credit so far this year, including...

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Seven Days: Classic Momentum

At Newmarket last Tuesday, a fellow racegoer suggested that the racecourse really should up its game in encouraging more people to attend the Craven meeting. I disagreed politely. For a start, there was a decent enough crowd there, enough for atmosphere but not so many that it was tricky to manoeuvre between pre-parade ring, parade ring and racecourse. And secondly, marketing a midweek meeting accompanied by Arctic temperatures just as many people have returned to work and school after the Easter holidays is not the easiest task. I know we...

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Seven Days: La Vie En Rose

Thank goodness for France. While Britain and Ireland mostly pause the serious Flat action in Grand National week, the French Classic trials rolled on with the return of racing at Longchamp on Sunday, which will be backed up by another strong card this coming Sunday. It was hard not to be impressed by the seasonal debut of Jannah Rose (Ire) (Frankel {GB}), who has raced only twice for two wins, and looked a proper Classic prospect for Al Shira'aa Farms and Carlos Laffon-Parias when winning the G3 Prix Vanteaux. When...

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Seven Days: All The Young Dudes

We're starting to feel a little long in the tooth in this corner. The racing equivalent to the observation about policemen looking young these days now applies to the weighing-room, and on Saturday one young gun after another came out with a performance that would entitle them to be considered the next big thing.  Benoit de la Sayette has already achieved plenty in his nascent career. Now 20, he had his first ride in November 2020 and became the first apprentice attached to John Gosden's stable in almost 30 years. ...

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