Cheltenham Festival Week 8 & Race Previews uploaded - Andy Richmond’s Beating The Bias (17/12) uploaded - General Sports uploaded (15/12) - Cheltenham Festival Week 7 & Weekend Race Previews uploaded
November 19th
In case you missed it, I previewed the Hennessy Gold Cup in Big Race Focus yesterday and this early evening I will be uploading a preview of the best of tomorrow’s action. Andy Richmond has given his latest instalment of Trading Talk in Guest Contributions today looking back at the The Open Meeting at Cheltenham for future clues, Adam Hewson has given the latest of his political betting blogs in Sport discussing the best value for the Republican race in the New Hampshire Primary and Mike Henderson will be previewing the weekend darts event covered on Sky in Glasgow which will be uploaded on Friday.
Most years I attend the Horserace Writers’ And Photographers’ Association annual awards at the Lancaster Gate Hotel in London and, being a member, I am eligible to vote in most of the categories. My main reason for being a member is to try and win their annual tipping competition (there are few other benefits, believe me) having been runner-up on three occasions but my Form Book comment for this year’s running would have read something like ‘slowly away, headway 3f out, finished well, given too much to do’ The results are announced on December 7th but here are where my votes went:
Racing Writer of the Year (from a short list of four): Donn McClean; Racing Reporter of the Year (from a short list of four): Lee Mottershead; Racing Broadcaster of the Year: Matt Chapman; Jockey of the Year: Frankie Dettori; Trainer of the Year: Willie Mullins; Owner of the Year: The Max Partnership (Coneygree).
Bizarrely, there is no award for Horse of the Year as voted by the journalists but there is a pointless gong for International Trainer of the Year which is given to the home-based trainer that fared best abroad. I can think of half a dozen better categories than that including Racing Book of the Year given that this is the racing journalism awards, rather than it being shoehorned into part of the Sports Book of the Year awards. I’m a horseracing writer and I honestly can’t tell you one single winner of the Racing Book of the Year as it doesn’t get the prominence it deserves as part of those awards rather than through the HWPA.
The Weekend preview will be uploaded late afternoon/early evening on Friday before I head off to Haydock.
