ONE of British point-to-pointing’s greatest trainers, Sheila Crow, has died. She was 87. Based at Hadnall in Shropshire, Crow handled numerous multiple winners, guided her children Alastair and Lucy to national riding championships, was a key factor in the four title races won by Richard Burton and helped Alastair’s son Henry at the start of his riding career. It was fitting that while in failing health she witnessed Henry’s memorable wins this spring on the Joe O’Shea-trained Barton Snow at the Cheltenham and Aintree festivals. Crow’s own highlight came in 2009 when the Burton-ridden Cappa Bleu won the Christie’s Foxhunters’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, while two years later the same rider partnered the Crow-trained My Flora to victory in Stratford’s champion novice hunters’ chase for the John Corbet Cup.

FLAT jockey Brandon Wilkie has been handed a suspended prison sentence after a vicious attack on another rider, Kyle McHugh. Both men are from Donegal but the incident happened in an apartment the two jockeys shared near Newmarket last August.

At Ipswich Crown Court, Wilkie (21) admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm on McHugh and was given a 14-month prison sentence with the entirety of the term suspended for a period of 12 months. He was also ordered to pay £500 in compensation to McHugh, who suffered a series of injuries, including a fractured eye socket, a broken nose and a fracture to his jaw.

FIELD Of Gold, the 2025 European Champion three-year-old miler, has been retired from racing and will begin a new chapter at stud with Juddmonte in 2027.

Winner of the Irish 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes last year, the horse is set to make a full recovery from the setback involving a bacterial lung infection that kept him from his intended Group 1 targets this season.

Juddmonte said the colt will not be ready to return to top-level racing this year and so a decision has been taken to prepare him for his stud career. He will stand alongside his sire Kingman at Juddmonte.

NATIONAL Hunt action is set to grace Towcester again after a 10-year absence. Towcester last staged a race meeting in May 2018, although it does successfully hold greyhound racing, including the Greyhound Derby. Facility refurbishments, worth over £2 million, have already begun and the revival of the racecourse will also be documented in a fly-on-the-wall series scheduled for release in 2027. Its official name will be Betway Towcester Racecourse.

LOST Boys, who looked such a progressive horse when winning at Royal Ascot, has been ruled out for the rest of the season. Trained by David Menuisier, the three-year-old Night Of Thunder colt was bought by Wathnan Racing after winning the London Gold Cup at Newbury and defied a 7lb higher mark in the Golden Gates at Ascot. However, he is due to be out of action for some considerable time.

Wathnan’s racing adviser Richard Brown said: “The prognosis is good, and he’ll get the very best care on his road to recovery.”