Believing

The Tattersalls December Sale is played out, akin to panto season, over two weeks, matinees and evening performances, incorporating almost every facet of the bloodstock sales business, from foals to yearlings, horses in training, broodmares, and sometimes the odd stallion or two. The Sceptre Sessions are only in their third year but they are already embedded as an integral part of the annual finale at Park Paddocks. And there is little doubt that the theatrical highlights come on the Monday and Tuesday of the second week, as dusk settles in...

Seventy years ago, Queen Elizabeth II won the fourth running of the race named in honour of her parents, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, at her own racecourse, Ascot. Aureole was a hugely appropriate winner, having been bred by King George VI in 1950, two years prior to the monarch's death. The horse's victory was widely welcomed, not least because he had been beaten a year earlier by his conqueror in the Derby, Pinza.  The 'King George' provides ones of the key pivot points in the season,...

HONG KONG, CHINA -- According to the Hong Kong Observatory, the city's weather forecast agency, about 230 millilitres of rain had fallen between the first of the year and Apr. 25. Of that amount, fully 200 mls have been recorded since the first of this month and the vast majority of that has occurred this week, as rain--at times heavy enough to completely obscure the top of the Sha Tin straight course--thunder and lightning have been just this side of relentless. The considerable precipitation has the connections of Hong Kong's...

Believing (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}) and Mill Stream (Ire) (Gleneagles {Ire}) have been supplemented at a cost of £20,000 to take on Shaquille (GB) (Charm Spirit {Ire}) in the Betfair Sprint Cup at Haydock on Saturday. A total of 23 speedsters are in contention for the six-furlong Group One, with the Julie Camacho-trained Shaquille very much the star attraction as he looks to add to his previous top-level wins this summer in the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot and the July Cup at Newmarket. The George Boughey-trained Believing and Jane Chapple-Hyam's...

NEWMARKET, UK--George Boughey is aiming to build on his two winners at Royal Ascot last year by taking a team of around 20 to next week's meeting, led by the G2 Coventry S. favourite Asadna (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}). Sheikh Abdullah Almalek Alsabah's colt, who earned a TDN Rising Star with his 12-length win at Ripon on his sole start, will be ridden by William Buick, who partnered him in a gallop on Tuesday morning. Buick will also ride Soprano (Ire) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}) in the G3 Albany S.  "The two-year-olds will...