ONE of the more amusing sights over the past week’s racing was in the four-year-old novice hurdle at Fairyhouse. As Proactif and Macho Man were heading to fight out the finish, coming to the second last and quite a way behind, we had It’s Bobsled Time. The gelding had won one of the new academy hurdles, devised to rival the French youngsters in getting horses to learn to jump earlier to improve that ability.

Well, It’s Bobsled Time had his own ideas about that and, despite having an academy ‘win’ to his name, he promptly said ‘I’ve had enough of this lark’, put on the brakes and tried to refuse. He finally screwed over the hurdle and ended up on the ground! So much for that idea that an earlier start makes better jumpers!

All that said, the ‘we need to do something to fight off the French-breds’ has led to those new races, and when you look at the novice hurdle markets for this year’s Cheltenham novices, it’s notable that Irish-bred horses are holding quite a dominant hand so far this year.

Old Park Star (Well Chosen) and No Drama This End (Walk In The Park) are the top two so far, but there’s also this long list of talented Irish-bred horses:

Amusingly, the two French-breds who are close to topping the Supreme and Turners markets, El Carios and Talk The Talk have… fallen on their last outings!

Who said the French are doing it better?!

IT’s no surprise to see the Dewhurst Stakes winner awarded the top two-year-old of 2025 title in the World Racehorse Rankings this week. It is more surprising, when he beat many of the better two-year-olds of the season in Gstaad, Distant Storm and Zavateri, that he is still available at 12/1 in places, in marked contrast to some of the Ballydoyle winter Guineas favourites of recent years.

Good looks (thankfully!) don’t always bring success, but it was interesting hearing the comments on the BHA meeting between BHA handicapper Graeme Smith and Dominic King of the Daily Mail on the impression made by another juvenile, another O’Brien two-year-old, the Newmarket and Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud winner, Pierre Bonnard.

Smith said: “I was at Newmarket that day for the Zetland Stakes as well, and that really reminded me of Sea The Stars’ Guineas back in ‘09. I was like, as soon, as soon as he walked in the parade ring. It was almost jaw dropping.

Dominic King added: “It was like an oil painting walking past you. It was one of those horses that… if you wanted to see a champion, you just thought you were looking at it. And I’m just so very, very excited about what he might do this year.” Plenty to look forward to in the parade ring and track for the Camelot colt.

Slow sprinters!

Another element of the world’s top horse ratings was, when you see the list in order from the best horses downwards, it was notable just how poorly the European sprinters fared last season, as we breed more and more supposedly speedy horses.

Ka Ying Rising is, by a long way, the world’s best sprinter on 128 (some argue the world’s best horse). But, of the 188 horses rated from 130 to 116, the only sprinter trained in Britain or Ireland to be listed is the Haydock Sprint Cup winner Big Mojo. That’s pretty poor in any book. Lazzat’s Group 1 win and overall consistency made him the top European sprinter on 120 and the other French-trained horse in the top 100 is the six and a half furlong Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest winner Sajir on 119. The British Champions Sprint shock winner Powerful Glory (115) is the only other sprinting three-year-old rated in the top 250 of best horses of 2025.

WE hear all the time about using more and more gimmicks to get more attention for racing. Well, the TV hit of recent years has been The Traitors, the latest series came to a climax on BBC1 last night.

How about a pre-Cheltenham game of deceit? Who can you trust? Who will let you down on the big day?

Forget Paudie - the Irish twist could be that when we all come to that round table, all the players in the Cheltenham version are in green and gold!

So Jonbon, are you really a faithful? You’ve let your ‘faithfuls’ down before. Can you really come up trumps? Inothewayurthinkin, can we really trust you as a genuine Gold Cup winner? Are you trying to pull the wool over our eyes this season?

Fact To File - were you playing games last time, you didn’t show up? Are we being played? Majborough, oh we want to like you, but those good first impressions are fading.

Spillane’s Tower, what are you doing here? We thought we’d banished you after those hurdle efforts. Do you think we trust you now? I Am Maximus, hiding there in the background, we see you, you might play a role in this game yet. Jagwar, we thought you had to be playing games, are you out of your depth at this Grade 1 table?

Tune in to next week’s episode to find out who is the Traitor!