a whizz through today's (Oct 24th) racing post.

​Aidan O’Brien is quoted as saying that Auguste Rodin is ‘probably the most exciting we’ve ever had’. A bold assertion, especially coming from the ever-cool Aidan O’Brien. I suspect, though, he has said the same about one or two other Coolmore two-year-olds. Did he not say that Australia was the best horse ever trained at Ballydoyle, only to retract, and virtually apologise for his brashness, and put Istabraq on the pedestal of being the best horse ever trained there. He was quite bullish this time last year about Luxembourg if I am not mistaken. The Vertem Futurity might turn out to be a race of great depth, though I doubt it, or history might record it as a so-so race. Personally, I am not so certain that Holloway Boy would not have either won or gone very close if he had kept a straight course. To my mind he gave away a good five-lengths veering across the course and was beaten the same by Auguste Rodin.
Students made up more than a quarter of the crowd at Cheltenham on Saturday, which is both heartening and alarming at the same time. It is only to be hoped that a quarter of the 5,000 students in attendance – there, I suspect, more for the party and the music laid on for them, than the horses – visit a racecourse of their choice in the very near future. Mirroring what I have said about putting on free coaches to encourage local people to attend race-meetings, the students were picked up from their halls of residence and accommodation. Clerks of courses should learn from this. Oh, and £7.50 for a pint of Guinness is close to racketeering when in my local hostelry it is half that amount.
As always, my favourite racing journalist Patrick Mullins – he’s a bit decent as a jockey by all accounts – wrote an entertaining article on his first visit to Far Hills to support Shark Hanlon’s Hewick win the absurdly named American Grand National. 2-miles 5 and a hurdle race! Not much commentary on the race itself from P.M. but a whole lot about the drink, the food, the dress-sense of the young women woman and the non-racing entertainment.
Holly Doyle is forsaking us this winter to ply her trade in Japan. The Japanese will doubtless fall in love with her, so its comforting to read that husband Tom is accompanying her. Or is it the other way round. Anyway, they have both been granted licences to ride and I hope they are not too much of a success in case the Japanese want them back every winter! Apparently, they fly off this week, with Holly requiring two-days leave of absence to ride Nashwa and The Platinum Queen at the Breeders Cup.
Desert Crown has returned to Michael Stoute (didn’t know he had been away) after a short holiday munching grass at Dalham Hall Stud. Keeping everything crossed that he keeps injury-free through the winter as Derby winners kept in training as 4-year-olds rarely have any luck.
Lewis Porteous in the latest Post journalist to bang on about the Cheltenham Festival staying at 4-days. Anybody would think it was the relief of Dunkirk or Mafeking the way racing’s great and the good have wallowed in ‘their triumph’. I, too, am reasonably pleased, though I think it may be an opportunity spurned, not that I’m going on and on about it.
If you trawl the Birthdays column you are faced with an awful truth – most racing people are very old, almost elderly. Former jockey Tony Kimberley is 80. Paul Tulk 84. Sir Thomas Dunne K.G., former steward at Hereford and Ludlow, is 89 and Rupert Lycett Green is 84.
A news item that I thought more worthy of greater highlighting was the triumph of Marie Velon in the Prix Royal Oak (the French St.Leger, if I am not mistaken) on Iresine. This must the first time two female jockeys have won European classics in one season, Holly Doyle having won the French Oaks, a bigger deal, of course, on Nashwa. Small history, maybe, but a hop and skip for females in sport.
Having begun with Aidan O’Brien, I must finish with the great man. He must have run Emily Dickinson fifteen-times this season, all over the wrong distance, it seems, in Oaks and St.Legers and after disappointing on every occasion, the filly waltzed away with a Group 3 at the Curragh on Sunday. The paddocks will have to wait a year for her as Aidan thinks she might be a good understudy for the imperious Kyprios in the Cup races next season.