Author: Joel Roberts

The jumps are back at Cheltenham as The Showcase meeting kicks off the new season, and it’s a treacherous time of year for punters with horses lacking fitness as they return from summers off. There might be a bet in the 15:00 Masterson Holdings Hurdle with the 6/4 favourite Adrien Du…

The most valuable race on Saturday’s Champions Day card at Ascot is the QIPCO-sponsored Champion Stakes, a ten-furlong Group One with a cool £737k for the winner. This year’s renewal looks a hot one with – bar Postponed – all the major middle-distance names of this season in contention and some…

Ascot’s QEII is now the richest mile race in Europe and pays its winner £623k, so it’s naturally attracted a star-studded field with all the leading lights of the mile division present bar the now-retired The Gurkha, who won the French Guineas and Sussex Stakes. No one horse has dominated these…

The Group-Two British Champions Long Distance Cup kicks off a fantastic Ascot card on Saturday with a star-studded renewal headlined by Ascot Gold Cup-winner and Arc-third Order Of St George for the irrepressible Aidan O’Brien. Odds-on across the board, I think there’s much better value elsewhere in a race featuring plenty of…

Aidan O’Brien’s two-year-old filly Rhododendron absolutely bolted up in yesterday’s Group-One Fillies’ Mile at Newmarket, and perhaps the return to the good-to-firm ground she experienced at Goodwood was key. By that logic you’d have to mark up the form of the second at Goodwood, Amabilis, who runs in a fairly…

There’s a familiar feel to this year’s Group-One Dewhurst Stakes, a seven-furlong heat for two-year-olds that has often crowed the champion juvenile. In Churchill, Aidan O’Brien once again has the odds-on favourite and it may be folly to take him on given the trainer’s ridiculous form in Group One races. An…

I’m giving LUMIERE one last chance in this Newmarket Group Two. I think, while a mile might stretch her stamina, seven furlongs is perfect for the daughter of Sharmadal – and she gets her ideal conditions of fast, firm ground. This is mostly based on the promise of her two-year-old campaign, where…

Europe’s richest horse race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, takes centre stage at its temporary home of Chantilly in northern France on Sunday, as its usual venue Longchamp undergoes redevelopment. There’s no doubt in my mind it’s the greatest horse race on the planet, known for big fields full…

At 10/1 I’m backing the French filly FIRST OF SPRING in the opening Prix Marcel Boussac on Arc day at Chantilly this Sunday. An easy winner of her first two starts, she’s never raced at this level but her trainer Jean-Claude Rouget was quoted saying he’s having a hard time splitting her and…