Sunday, June 01, 2008

Pick 'n' mix

Derby week started with Vision D'Etat winning the French version from Dermot Weld's Famous Name with the filly Natagora running a brave race in third - a filly hasn't won this for well over a hundred years.

Epsom hosts the Oaks on Friday and the Derby on Saturday. The build-up to the Derby hasn't been without its troubles - some fancied runners have fallen by the wayside and there have been well documented problems with sponsorship. Added to that, the course is undergoing building work at the moment...

Talk of building work brings to mind Great Leighs which staged its first public meeting earlier in the week. The general picture to emerge is that there's still a long way to go. If you fancy a day's racing at Great Leighs anytime soon, before you go, make sure you've read Alan Lee's article from The Times, just so you know what you're letting yourself in for...

The other day, browsing through the BBC's blog network, I chanced upon this Inside Sport piece in which Tony McCoy showed Gabby Logan around his home. Mrs Tips, watching over my shoulder, couldn't believe it when AP told the cameras that at the races he drank lots of hot sweet tea - usually six to eight sugars per cup.

Radio Four's Sunday programme ran a short piece on religion and racing earlier today. Luke Harvey talked to Frankie Dettori, Walter Swinburn and Eddie Ahern amongst others but, if any of them had received a tip from the Almighty, they weren't for sharing it with the likes of you and me...

Mtoto Girl, sent off 100/1 in a handicap at Goodwood last Friday, finished, as you might expect, eleventh of the twelve runners. The name Mtoto though brought back memories of the great horse with the white blaze from the mid / late eighties (who happens to be Mtoto Girl's sire). Michael Roberts, the only South African to have become champion jockey in Britain, chose Mtoto's defeat of Reference Point in the 1987 Eclipse as 'the race of [his] life'. That was twenty one years ago, but it seems just like yesterday.

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