Dancing Brave

Newmarket's Craven meeting could just as well be called Anticipation Week. Anticipation is climbing the steps of a venerated football stadium for a night game to find the floodlights blazing and the grass slick and lush. It's the bounce of the England cricket team down the pavilion steps to start an Ashes series. It's checking your tickets the day before Wimbledon tennis starts or standing just after dawn beside the first tee at an Open Championship or Masters. It's not about what you know. It's about all the things you...

Charismatic international jockey Frankie Dettori and 1980s legend Dancing Brave (Lyphard) are the two newest members of the QIPCO British Champions Series Hall of Fame. Launched in 2021, the Hall of Fame is specifically for UK Flat racing, and both inductees will be honoured through a special presentation moment ahead of the G1 QIPCO 2000 Guineas at Newmarket Racecourse on Saturday, Apr. 30. Dettori, 51, is the third jockey to be inducted after Lester Piggott and Pat Eddery. He has ridden almost 3,300 British winners, third to Piggott and Willie...

The late Pat Eddery has been inducted into the QIPCO British Champions Series Hall of Fame. Eddery, who died in 2015, was named champion jockey on 11 occasions from 1974-1996 and booted home more than 6,000 winners. A total of 4,632 were in Great Britain, a figure exceeded only by the legendary Sir Gordon Richards, who had 4,870. Eddery won 14 British Classics, including three Derbys with Grundy (GB) (Great Nephew {GB}), Golden Fleece (Nijinsky II) and Quest For Fame (GB) (Rainbow Quest). It was aboard Grundy that Eddery rode...

His Highness Prince Khalid bin Abdullah, one of the most successful owner/breeders in the history of the sport through his Juddmonte Farms dynasty, died on Jan. 12 in his 84th year. Prince Khalid's famous green, pink and white silks have been immortalized in the annals of the sport, having been carried transatlantically by 118 Grade/Group 1 winners headed by champions like Frankel (GB), Dancing Brave (GB), Enable (GB) and Arrogate among many others. He campaigned over 500 stakes winners, of which he bred over 440. Douglas Erskine Crum, chief executive...

Nothing sacred just appears out of the wilderness; it is always the outcome of an evolutionary process with many layers of development. In racing, France and arguably Europe's self-proclaimed 'monument', the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, emerged from a lengthy spell of planning and forethought into how the country could showcase its own talent in direct competition with its neighbours. With the hippodrome at Longchamp superseding the worn-out Champ de Mars circuit in 1857, the Societe d'Encouragement pour l'Amelioration des Races de Chevaux en France looked to provide some prizes...

   In Part II of a two-part series, John Berry looks at Juddmonte's lasting influences from the late 80s through to the present on the 40th anniversary weekend of Prince Khalid Abdullah's first Classic win with Known Fact in the 2000 Guineas. Click here for Part I. When the mighty Dancing Brave (Lyphard) retired to stud, his brilliant 1986 G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe triumph shining like a beacon in the collective consciousness, it was generally felt that Prince Khalid Abdullah had probably reached the pinnacle of his ownership...

In Part I of a two-part series on the 40th anniversary weekend of Known Fact's 2000 Guineas win, John Berry takes us through the first decade of Prince Khalid Abdullah's racing and breeding dynasty. Under normal circumstances, the European Classic year would be springing into life this weekend with Newmarket staging the G1 2000 Guineas and G1 1000 Guineas. Forty years ago the Guineas meeting looked a particularly special one, the main trials having set the stage perfectly. Subsequent Irish Derby hero Tyrnavos (GB) (Blakeney {GB}) had beaten Chesham S....