Journalist, broadcaster @RacingTV #RoadToCheltenham @SportingLife @ObserverUK Chair of BHA's Flat Pattern Committee @BRSNewmarket trustee @RaceShare consultant
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ICYMI
‘How can we know it won't again be this furtive and high-handed in its decision-making processes?’
Synonymous With Greats, Kempton is Braced for Extinction by @LydiaHislop thoroughbreddailynews.com/op…
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British racing fans at the Dublin Racing Festival say it cost less to fly & stay there for 2 days than for the equivalent trip to the Cheltenham Festival. Some argued the racing was better too. A little grumbling about queueing for loos/drinks but again “not as bad as Cheltenham”
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Well said @mickfitzg
“These horses have given me a life that I’m privileged to have, and it just makes me really sad.”
An emotional @mickfitzg addresses the unfolding story surrounding Gordon Elliott with @TonyEnnis11
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This whole interview from Patrick Mullins is worth watching. Twice at least.
🗣️ "A great privilege to get the 100 for my father. A special moment."
Patrick Mullins on Willie Mullins reaching the #CheltenhamFestival 100 Club following Jasmin De Vaux's win in the @weatherbysltd Champion Bumper 👇🏻
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In purporting to demonstrate its impartiality to those acting in bad faith, the BBC has instead demonstrated its pliancy and the loss of its moral compass. In this way, it will also squander the backing of those who would otherwise support it in the battles ahead.
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*new favourite interview*
"This has just been a good game to me and my family."
Fantastic stuff from Pat O'Donnell as the Limerick trainer celebrates victory in the £100,000 Sky Bet Stayers Handicap with family horse Extensio 😃
@LydiaHislop | @yorkracecourse
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Accuracy, not speed, must be the primary concern when conveying news about fallen riders and horses. That’s why this update, as supplied by @nickluck and the entire @RacingTV team, was so informative.
Nick Luck shares this update after the Randox Grand National, with news on Broadway Boy and Celebre D'allen
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Good grief. I went to the Wednesday of the Festival with my grandpa aged 10yo onwards. This would definitely have meant I stayed at home & may never have fallen in love with the sport or perhaps not to the same degree. I had not realised this was the modern policy. Terrible idea.
Bringing two of my kids this year aged 8 & 10 presumed like most events in an outdoor venue kids under 12 would be free . Will bring the entry cost to 522euro a day for a family of four before accommodation and travel from ireland @CheltenhamRaces
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There is no person, no institution - including those this democracy relies upon to function - & no cause - not even the destabilisation of Eastern Europe - that this PM isn’t prepared to sacrifice to keep himself in power. It’s degrading. Give us some peace and go @BorisJohnson.
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There has been much irresponsible language thrown about on Planet Horseracing this weekend, including allegations (& postulations) of injury-causing ground and the conflating of welfare with campaign preference. Those of us who earn our living via this sport owe it greater care.
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Wow this is exciting!
🐴 Exciting news!
#RoadToCheltenham has been shortlisted in the “Best Lockdown Production” category of the 2021 Broadcast Sport Awards, which celebrate the best sports content on TV & digital platforms 😍
Winner announced November 3🤞
@LydiaHislop | @Ruby_Walsh @BSportAwards
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One of the greatest sportsmen of all time. Never to be forgotten as the master of his craft.
Lester Piggott died peacefully in the early hours of this morning. He was champion jockey on 11 occasions and ended his incredible career with 4,493 winners. Only Sir Gordon Richards (4,870) and Pat Eddery (4,633) have ridden more.
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So pleased Crystal Ocean got a round of applause afterwards. Thoroughly deserved. It takes at least two great horses to make a great race. #Enable #CrystalOcean
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Anyone else sick of spending the first 15 minutes of going out with your friends doing the job of the hosts by scanning the QR code, downloading the app, handing over your personal details, navigating their website, paying in advance, waiting for ages… just to have 1 drink?
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Dettori on the decks after racing at Newmarket. If he didn’t start with Encore Une Fois he was missing a trick!
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Racing fans deserve better than a choice of fried stuff, fried stuff, doughy meatball sandwiches (🤮 this is not the US) or salty packet sandwiches. Paying customers at racecourses routinely get an awful deal. Is it any wonder people are voting with their feet?
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ITV Racing’s @RichardHoiles has reported that their time codes prove the race was already off when the protestor breached the track.
⚠️⚠️ BREAKING!!
Supporter of #AnimalRising makes it on to the tracks of the #EpsomDerby
Despite The Jockey Club's claim that the horses safety is paramount, they decided to start the race DESPITE KNOWING THAT A PROTESTER WAS ON THE TRACKS. Another sickening display of profit > care for animals.
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John Oxx was an outstanding trainer, whose deftly aggressive 3yo campaigning of Sea The Stars gave many of us great joy. Ridgewood Pearl and Sinndar, too. Above anything else, however, is what an unchangingly lovely person he is to deal with. I wish him a happy retirement.
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It's the pacing, more pacing, a bit more pacing, private proud smile... and final air-punch of delight that makes this simply wonderful!
🐴 Fabulous footage of trainer Henry De Bromhead taking every step with Honeysuckle as she secures a second Unibet Champion Hurdle under Rachael Blackmore.
#CheltenhamFestival @HenrydeBromhead @rachaelblackmor @CheltenhamRaces @UnibetRacing
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Just nine horses in the Spring Mile. Can someone press the panic button, please? Nobody seems to be hearing mine.
Britain is winning the race to the bottom, though. No doubt.
#wehavelotsofclass6horses
#butmanyfewergoodones
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Unashamedly blubbing in public...
The Coral Gold Cup takes place at Newbury tomorrow. Every year around this time, the memories of Denman's performance in the 2009 renewal come flooding back. Returning from a disappointing season, running off a rating of 174 under 11-12 and he delivers this. Awe inspiring.
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What is the point of @Jacob_Rees_Mogg having guests join him on his show if he’s just going to talk over anyone who disagrees with him?
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My piece about the allegations of bullying in racing - and the implications of the sport's reaction to them.
tortoisemedia.com/2021/11/04…
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Hello everyone
I’m being impersonated by an account with the same name visually but with a capital i rather than a lower case L in Hislop. I’d appreciate if you could spare the 15 seconds it takes to report this issue, if you follow me, please.
All the best
Lydia
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This is a sad moment for racing fans and the sport itself. Chris is a top-notch journalist, prepared to go where most others don’t dare, and the Guardian will be the poorer without him. I look forward to working alongside him again soon. People should be snapping up his services.
I've finished my last shift at The Guardian - a sad moment, as I love the paper and many of its people.
They want to do less on horse racing, so I'm moving on
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A typical customer message from a bookmaker, in this case Bet365. Where is the transparency and consistency of decision-making and the customer’s right of appeal @GamRegGB?
Well can see why. This was my pre xmas penalty for having the audacity to have £15 to win at 4-6 on my own horse
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Magnificent reward for @RalphBeckett, rolling the big dice with Bluestocking. Signalled her game-changing mental maturity from her seasonal debut win in the Middleton back in May.
Huge congratulations to @Rossaryan15 for the most significant success yet in his burgeoning career.
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Petition: Stop the implementation of betting affordability/financial risk checks
petition.parliament.uk/petit…
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Aaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Nicky Henderson has reservations around running star hurdler Constitution Hill in the International Hurdle later this month. Per @StellingRobbie
"I'd like to run him if it makes perfect sense but I'm not convinced it does."
The reigning Champion Hurdler may go straight to the festival on the back of his Christmas Hurdle win.
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It’s good to be reminded that there was more to this interview than Peppa Pig.
🗣️ Perhaps the most iconic #CheltenhamFestival interview ever?
📺 After 𝗔𝗡𝗬 𝗦𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗗 𝗡𝗢𝗪 won the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir in 2019, Ted Walsh & @LydiaHislop gave us this...
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A stark indication of what British racing’s future might look like as Frankie Dettori cites “unbelievable” prize money as a key factor in him missing the entirety of York’s Ebor Festival for the sake of two rides in Deauville.
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I find extraordinary the call for the Irish Derby to drop distance to 10f. Disincentivise breeding the type of horse that established Irish Flat racing's reputation & where it traditionally dominates in favour of encouraging more horses that the rest of the world produces better?
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Derby, Arc, Eclipse and Irish Champion winner - who ran 8 times including 6 G1s in 4 different countries as 3yo - in producing game high-quality sound athletes SHOCK. He’d do the same for the Flat, given the chance.
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Cheltenham’s equivalent of the Derby fireworks? Loud music and waving flags by a song-and-troupe as inexperienced 4yos are entering the paddock for the most important assignment of their season? Whose daft idea was that? I thought we were meant to learn from mistakes.
@LydiaHislop why oh why did Cheltenham have that lady screeching before the first…poor horses. Surely we can do without that number one improvement we hope 🤞
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So BHA chief executive Julie Harrington abstained or voted against - probably the former - her own team’s proposal for a 300-race reduction in the race programme, enabling the can to be kicked down the road for another year. ‘Questions to answer’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.
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Delighted for @loughnane_billy that he’s enjoying a breakthrough week at Royal Ascot. On the jockeys’ licensing course, he was an example to everybody in his focus, enthusiasm and application. He deserves every bit of his success - now and much, much more in the future.
🎙️ 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 - 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐞 🎙️
@loughnane_billy takes the time to chat with @MCYeeehaaa
about:
🏆 His ambition to become Champion Jockey
🤩 Looking up to @AP_McCoy and @TomMarquand
⏰ Waking up at 4am to go riding before school
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Is this a variation of “how many winners have you ridden”? It’s an opinion piece. If we all must dully stick to our lane, Hill might ask how many you’ve written?
It’s a very dangerous road, in my opinion, to brandish “animal welfare” as a means of stifling valid, balanced debate.
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Australian decision-makers have decided to pass off counterfeit goods as Group races via interstate wheel-and-dealing. Don’t label your races with a Pattern badge if you’ve no respect for, or understanding of, the concept. Races must do what they say on the tin. Embarrassing.
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Sean Bowen currently being asked to explain his ride on Delta Work to the Cheltenham stewards also. Report to follow.
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Lunch at Bro Park: 3 tasty choices, plus a salad, water & coffee/tea for c.£11. Beer extra 😳Available to all racegoers. In a lovely café setting with cosy decor & a view of the track. We were given actual glasses, plates & cutlery - not plastic, wood, cartons. How it should be.
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This is awful "journalism". Factually incorrect, insinuating, full of leaps of logic, non sequiturs and personal hobby-horses crowbarred nonsensically into one piece. Reads like it was dashed off in 10 minutes but no doubt it was well paid. I'd have been embarrassed to print it.
‘Having interviewed Robbie Dunne [as part of Dunne/Bryony Frost case which starts on Tuesday] the BHA investigator went on an Oliver Reed-style bender, which became an HR fiasco … and led to inevitable delays [in the case]’ writes Charlie Brooks in today’s Telegraph …
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Whilst I think City Of Troy just delivered the most exciting 2yo performance since Frankel at the same stage in his career, today’s winner is already a polished competitor whereas the best horse I’ve seen had much to learn about racing & therefore greater scope for improvement.
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If, on reflection, you think you didn't blub enough yesterday, try this:
Bryony Frost and Frodon, The Festival fairytale that really came true...
#CheltenhamFestival
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Funnily enough, another correspondent tonight chose to focus - negatively - on a different snippet of that interview. There are many elements to this episode. I’m just doing my job, at all stages, consistently, as I believe is right. Others will agree or disagree. I stand by it.
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Come racing? This is increasingly the “welcome” customers receive at racecourse admission gates. Confiscating food and drink, thousands of people having to shuffle past one sniffer dog. Do better. It CAN be done well. Take York, for example.
Went to Newbury yesterday with my daughter and son-in-law and 4 grandchildren,£60 for 3 adults,children were all free,daughter took some sweets and snacks for kids to eat the woman at the gate searched her back and said if it’s was sandwiches she would have had to confiscate them
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Devastating news that Stefano Cherchi has died. My thoughts and deepest sympathies are with his family and friends.
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I hesitate to give you what you want, @BetfairRacing but : "Betfair Cheltenham Free Bet Pot Builder Chase (Registered As The Game Spirit Chase)". Couldn't you have found something uglier?
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We do not have the horses. Repeat: we do not have the horses.
What happens when punters get bored of odds-on coronations and start looking elsewhere for sporting competition?
And are they going to cut the price of admission for one less race?
Wake up, guys: this is self-defeating
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Rachael Blackmore changed the game, but racing still has so much more to prove | The Observer observer.co.uk/news/sport/ar…
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Spot on, this. I’ve been banging on for years about horses not being in the paddock early enough for the paying public to see. Great to hear Richard Hoiles & Ken Pitterson being proactive about it with the trainers. Now it’s for the BHA to enforce more fan-friendly rules properly
🗣"If we believe that the unique selling point of horse racing is the horse and you want people to learn about racing, you need to bring them down to the paddock"
@RichardHoiles and @acmulrennan share their view on enabling racegoers to see more of the horses before a race.
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Why would betting customers trust their (highly valuable) personal data to an industry that’s shown itself again & again to be unable to conduct itself properly?
The greater intrusion of open banking is not the answer that I fear @GamRegGB & @StuartAndrew blithely believe it is.
Another day, another fine. This time bet365 for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.
Would you trust a company with AML failures with access to your bank account data?
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That was a very moving tribute to Pat Smullen, a film created on the occasion of his Cartier/Daily Telegraph Order Of Merit award and aired on @itvracing's The Opening Show just now.
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Peak performances at 12f and yet unaccountably not considered "just" a Jumps sire by the thoroughbred world's fastest ascending nation. 😕
Japan’s reigning champion sire Kizuna (Deep Impact) on parade at Shadai Stallion Station. He was also the leading sire of two-year-olds last year and the champion first-season sire of 2019.
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Packham wasn’t only referring to the Dubaian downpour, though, was he? You’ve selected the part of his sentence that might suit your argument. (“Might”, given you acknowledge there isn’t enough evidence to support a firm interpretation.)
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I hated this headline. Infringing whip rules aren't a joking matter. It should be taboo to break them, rather than deemed an occupational hazard or met with talk of enjoying the "holiday". Whoever reacts this way, or promotes such a stance uncritically, does racing a disservice.
It is no wonder @RacingPost exasperates much of its readership when 12 months on from engineering an emotive debate about the whip and penalties, it's now ok to 'joke' about a jockey's 22 day ban for misuse
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On a happier note, what would you like Ruby Walsh and me to discuss on #RoadToCheltenham this week?
If you say "the whip rules", your tweet will self-destruct in 5 seconds.
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Emotive subject aside, it’s encouraging that an influential trainer refers to punters like this:
"For the sport's customer base, the punter, it's totally unsatisfactory. British racing has to look after that core group because if it doesn't they'll go elsewhere.” - Simon Crisford
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In case you missed it, here's my first Road To Cheltenham of the jumps season.
Hurry up and read it before the next one drops! #guaranteedtoolongfornewdads #crymeariver #trymultitasking 😜
sportinglife.com/racing/news…
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Cheltenham stewards enquired into running/riding of Iroko. Jonjo O’Neill Jnr said he’d lost confidence jumping after his fall at Ascot; been schooling him. Aim to get him jumping. Found himself in a pocket turning for home, felt flat out. Needs upping in trip. Explanation noted.
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To those who work in racing & breeding, & even affiliated services:
Remember during Covid it was explicitly illustrated how the financial workings of this sport rely on betting? Affordability checks, as currently proposed, will have a comparable effect.
petition.parliament.uk/petit…
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Amy Lee, daughter of critically injured jockey Graham Lee, is fundraising for The Injured Jockeys Fund on @JustGiving. With Graham in our thoughts, please donate now: justgiving.com/page/amy-lee-…
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Whilst we chew over the latest modifications to the Grand National fences, here's a piece I wrote earlier this year celebrating the 50-year anniversary of its most prolific winner, the horse synonymous with the race: Red Rum.
tortoisemedia.com/2023/10/13…
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Too right! #star
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Take a bow @icyNKFA. This was the best in a strong field, imo:
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Wonderful scenes as William Jarvis, Kieran Shoemark and Emma Banks hug tearfully in the @Goodwood_Races winner’s enclosure after Lady Bowthorpe’s much-deserved first Group One success in the Qatar Nassau Stakes.
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Does @TheJockeyClub realise they can have an owners' day, family day or non-racing day at any time in their racing programme at Cheltenham, not just as a trojan horse for a 5-day Festival?
Latest news on the 5-day Cheltenham Festival consultation:
▪️ Members sent a survey including potential ideas such as owners’, family or a non-racing day on the Saturday.
▪️ Local MP says town “stands ready” for fifth day.
Read more with Members' Club Ultimate 👇
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Decision-makers in British racing should cherish the Pattern more carefully. If they keep removing a brick here & there in its underpinning structure, the whole thing falls down. Then suddenly the sport’s left to rely only on money it doesn’t have rather than decades of prestige.
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If you still think the BHA’s counsel called weighing-room culture “rancid”, please watch this. @boyciesbetting explains the meaning of the sentence in which that word was used. For analogy, it’s a bit like the word “murder” in jockey-speak. It means something different used alone
What was the PJA thinking in its press release on Thursday? CEO Paul Struthers is questioned by @boyciesbetting on #RacingDebate
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God I love horseracing. Enable v. Crystal Ocean. A superb King George. She’s brilliant and she’s brave. #Enable
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Calling Deauville racegoers today: whilst having a lovely time, I sadly lost my favourite bee necklace (a black, yellow and silver bee on a large-linked silver chain) at the races. If you happen to be so wonderful as to find it, please DM or tweet me.
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Really? We’re doing this AGAIN, now and seemingly uncritically? If we must, please remember the well-known spectrum of ground: good-to-firm, good, abominable, soft and heavy.
Nicky Henderson: certain people really tested my patience with Altior comments
racingpost.com/
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Happy Jumps season, everyone!
Santini to miss Betfair Chase and instead take part at the Ladbrokes Winter Carnival gallops morning at @NewburyRacing on Tuesday. Watch him and plenty of other stars exercise live on Racing TV! 👇
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