The Racing Hub Round-up

The Racing Hub’s weekly round-up of top racing stories in a nutshell, plus upcoming fixtures

Racing and Racecourses

Royal Ascot 2020 will be run for a record £8,095,000 prize money, an increase of £765,000 on 2019 values and, for the first time, the Royal Meeting will play host to two £1 million races: The Prince of Wales’s Stakes (from £750,000); and the Diamond Jubilee Stakes (from £600,000) – no race at Royal Ascot will be run for less than £95,000 in 2020 (£90,000 in 2019) and in total 16 of the 30 races have been the subject of increases

Total prize money at Ascot next year, excluding the industry owned QIPCO British Champions Day, will be £14.4m, an increase of £819,000 (Executive contribution 2020: £8.1m, 2019: £7.4m) – this includes bringing the Longines Sagaro Stakes up from £60,000 to £80,000 to match the Commonwealth Cup Trial on Royal Ascot Trials Day

Experienced Northern Ireland leisure and tourist industry executive, Tim Husbands (pictured), is the new chief executive of Leopardstown Racecourse – Husbands has been managing director of Belfast’s Waterfront Hall and Ulster Hall, Head of Belfast’s City Events and Ventures and, lately, chief executive of Titanic Belfast

Trainers and Jockeys

Trainer Denis Quinn received a £1 nominal fine from a BHA Disciplinary Panel which accepted that one of his horses had been doped deliberately and maliciously by a third party in an attempt to damage him – last year Wolverhampton racecourse received an anonymous tip-off that Murdanova had been given bute and the horse subsequently tested positive

Eighty-year-old Alan Bailey, Newmarket’s oldest trainer, is to retire next year after a career spanning over seven decades having rode as an apprentice in the fifties and has been training nearly 40 years during which time he’s sent out over 600 winners – Bailey will pass on his licence to his grandson Joseph Par at the end of January

Horses

La Bague Au Roi, who was pulled up on her seasonal reappearance when favourite for the Charlie Hall Chase, is to return to the track in Sunday’s Fitzdares Peterborough Chase at Huntingdon.

Christmas Hurdler winner Verdana Blue has been bought by Michael Tabor at the Tattersalls December Mares Sale, and will return to Nicky Henderson’s Seven Barrows yard in Lambourn – Tom Goff did the bidding on behalf of Tabor, with a winning bid of 370,000 guineas, to beat off Anthony Bromley, and told www.tattersalls.com: “She is the most beautiful National Hunt mare I have seen in years.”

Nicky Henderson is hopeful that two-time Champion Hurdle winner Buveur D’Air will make a full recovery after injuring himself up in Newcastle’s Fighting Fifth Hurdle when narrowly beaten by Cornerstone Lad, but described it as a “grey area” if he’d race again this season – in a bad mistake two from home a piece of wood from the hurdle got wedged in his hoof, and he finished lame, and Barry Geraghty dismounted after the line

Leading Champion Hurdle fancy Saldier, available with Paddy Power at 6/1, will miss a planned run at Leopardstown in the Matheson Hurdle on 29 December due to a minor setback – trainer Willie Mullins said the five-year-old “didn’t come out of the Morgiana as I would have liked. Hopefully we’ll have him back in action in the new year.”

Joseph O’Brien has confirmed Leopardstown’s Christmas Festival as the likely target for Fakir D’oudairies after his 22-length victory in the Drinmore Novice Chase at Fairyhouse – the four-year-old took the Grade 1 race after market rival Samcro fell two fences from home when disputing with the eventual winner

Media

The Racing Post won four of the media awards at this year’s Horserace Writers’ & Photographers’ Association Derby Awards at the Royal Lancaster hotel in London.

• Clive Graham Trophy for Racing Writer of the Year: Lee Mottershead (Racing Post)
• John Oaksey Trophy for Racing Reporter of the Year: Marcus Townend (Daily Mail)
• Photographer of the Year: Patrick McCann (Racing Post)
• Peter O’Sullevan Trophy for Broadcaster of the Year: Lydia Hislop (Racing TV)
• Alan Lee Trophy for Emerging Talent of the Year: Jonathan Harding (Racing Post)
• Specialist Writer: Kevin Blake
• Flat Trainer of the Year: John Gosden
• Jumps Trainer of the Year: Paul Nicholls
• International Trainer of the Year: John Gosden
• Flat Jockey of the Year: Frankie Dettori
• Jump Jockey of the Year: Bryony Frost
• Owner of the Year: Andrew Gemmell
• Qatar Racing & Equestrian Club Arabian Award: James Owen
• George Ennor Trophy for Outstanding Achievement: Lisa Hancock
• HWPA President’s Award: Ruby Walsh

Cornelius Lysaght (pictured), 54, the BBC’s racing correspondent, has confirmed he is leaving the corporation next year having work for the broadcaster for 30 years – a BBC spokesperson said they were grateful to an ‘exceptional correspondent who has made an outstanding contribution’.

British fixtures

Fixtures subject to change. ITV/ITV4

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