#Scott Burton

Blackbeard: will bid to resume winning ways in the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin on Sunday One of the many ways in which Aidan O'Brien has marked himself out as a generational training talent has been the way he doesn't just go round ticking big races off a career list and then discarding them. His record in the British and Irish Classics is that of a…

Willie Mullins and Paul Townend after Impaire Et Passe won on his hurdling debut at Naas in December Impaire Et Passe was cut for the Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle over 2m and the longer Ballymore Novices' Hurdle over 2m5f after impressing at Punchestown. Which race at the festival do our experts favour? If he were mine it would be the Supreme…

Haddex Des Obeaux: could be just the sort for a big handicap following his win at Warwick On a busy day of action across Britain and Ireland, there were plenty of clues on offer looking ahead to some of the major handicaps at Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown this spring, but who caught the eyes of our judges? As Tony Blair might have said, the…

Van Gogh remains among the entries for both the Cazoo Derby and the Qatar Prix du Jockey Club All 20 remaining entries stood their ground at the penultimate declaration stage for the €1.5 million Qatar Prix du Jockey Club, with no supplemented horses appearing on the list on Wednesday. That left Van Gogh as the only colt with the option of both the…

The biggest empires in history evolved from one great individual at the very top. From the heady days of Julius Caesar and the Roman empire to Napoleon Bonaparte's French conquests, it takes the best leader to ignite sheer success. For owner John Dance, his expanding racing empire is thriving thanks to his own Empress at the top charting the…

Highfield Princess and Jason Hart claim the Prix Maurice de Gheest on Sunday Victory in the Group 1 Arc Prix Maurice de Gheest was secured with the brilliant execution of not one but two plans. The first piece of foresight was for trainer John Quinn to give Highfield Princess a short break after running an excellent sixth in the Platinum Jubilee…

The Japan Cup takes centre stage internationally next Sunday and while the race - worth a cool £2.5 million to the winner - has not gone to a horse trained outside Japan since 2005, that hasn't deterred connections of four European runners from making the journey, the biggest contingent in a decade. And there are reasons for hope of a breakthrough,…

Imagine for a moment being loaded with money. So loaded there was plenty to unload on any of the three sure-fire ways to blow an investment. As some financial wizard told Tony Kornheiser, they are a private plane, a restaurant and a racehorse. Forget about the plane and the restaurant. How about being someone like Jack Wolf? He and his wife Laurie…

St Donats flanked by jockey James Reveley and his father James, as well as trainer Hugo Merienne (blue suit) James Reveley may not have won the feature Prix la Haye Jousselin with the Willie Mullins-trained Franco De Port, but a haul of two Grade 1s out of three resulted in him showing his very best at Auteuil. Not that Mullins will have been too…

The build-up to the French 1000 Guineas has been dominated by discussion about the historic difficulty of doubling up in the Newmarket and Longchamp Classics, but behind the raw facts that Special Duty was the last to succeed and both Finsceal Beo and Mother Earth were narrowly beaten is the mitigation that not many winners of the English version…

It showed up like clockwork last week in my email. Remember email? About 240 of us voters for the Eclipse Awards received our annual packets of digital information, complete with the usual advice to tamp an eagerness we may have to cast an early ballot. "It is strongly encouraged," the instructions said, "that you consider waiting to vote until…

Yutaka Take and Do Deuce after winning the Tokyo Yushun, Japan's Derby Titleholder may be the Japanese contender to have attracted most market support for Sunday's Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe but legendary jockey Yutaka Take has warned his compatriot Do Deuce should not be overlooked. Take will be riding in his tenth Arc on Sunday and will be…

Five weeks before Tarnawa won last year's Breeders' Cup Turf, she served notice that she could win anytime on any surface. In what looked more like a regatta than a horse race, Christophe Soumillon took her from the back of the pack and sailed her - almost literally sailed - to a short-neck victory in the Prix de l'Opera in Paris. Not long after…