Things change quickly in the world of first-season sires. It is a fickle and unforgiving land in which a sire can go from being the cock of the walk thanks to the appeal of his progeny at the yearling sales to quickly turning into a feather duster just a few months after his first representatives [...]

It could readily be argued that Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) has been the most important horse in the modern history of British Flat racing. Not only did his phenomenal achievements on the track attract untold numbers of eyes to the sport for all the right reasons, he effectively launched British Champions Day on the road [...]

Aidan O'Brien is a phenomenal trainer. His recent 1-2-3 in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe was a culmination of almost two decades of relentless success at the very highest level of the sport. The praise that he received in the wake of that remarkable achievement, which he typically tried to deflect onto other members [...]

In life, sometimes our most valuable commodities are right in front of our noses, but remain underappreciated and underutilised such is our familiarity with them. Horse racing can often seem like a sport that is quite insecure about its own value. Many of the marketing and promotional methods used by racing authorities around the world [...]

Horse racing, in common with any sport, has its share of opportunities and challenges as it fights for the public's attention and support. The world of sport and entertainment has never been more competitive than it is now, and with it being a world that is ever changing and evolving, those sports that fail to [...]

Last week, this space discussed and theorised about the potential impact of drugs that seek to enhance the peak performance levels of racehorses (click here). Unsurprisingly, the piece generated quite a bit of comment given just how hot a topic performance-enhancing drugs in sport is right now. However, while drugs such as anabolic steroids and [...]

The issue of drugs in sport has never been bigger than it is now. There have been so many performance-enhancing drug scandals in recent years that it has bred a culture of scepticism of sporting success amongst the public. Brilliant performances are immediately questioned as being too good to be true, with the trainers/coaches that [...]

In the fast-changing, fashion-driven world of bloodstock, everyone wants to find the sire that will be the next big thing. Of course, most sires will be long-term commercial failures, but some will become runaway successes, including some that start from a very low base in terms of nomination fee. One only has to look at [...]

Such is the obsession with all that is new and shiny in the bloodstock world, every season there are generally over a dozen new stallions that attract significant numbers of mares in Europe. History tells us that the vast majority of these new sires are destined to be failures, but most years see one or [...]

Make no mistake, being a racehorse trainer is one of the most challenging professions in sport. It would be difficult enough if their sole responsibility was conditioning such notoriously fragile animals to perform at their best, but being a trainer involves so much more than that. A trainer that isn't fortunate enough to have the [...]

There is an old saying that goes “foals are for fools.” The suggestion being that assessing how a horse will look and perform later in life based on their appearance as a foal is a risky business, such is their relatively early stage of physical development at that point. Yet, that doesn't deter an army [...]

In a game as fashion-focused and fickle as the bloodstock business, there is always great emphasis on what is new and exciting. This is seen to no greater extent than in the phenomenon that is the markets for progeny of first-season sires. There is always a great amount of financial and non-financial speculation as to [...]