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Fairy faces reality check in St Leger

In racing circles September has traditionally been known as the mares' month, appropriately enough given that the St Leger is generally where the Classic battle of the sexes is joined. The epithet, though, actually had its origins in an ancient end-of-harvest ritual involving a corn sheaf fashioned into the shape of a female horse, before it was adopted as a nod to the progress on the track often made by the real things as their hormonal cycles settle towards the end of the year.

Noseda stakes all on Cup with Laddies Poker Two

Having already pulled off one pretty outrageous stunt with the same mare, Jeremy Noseda yesterday contrived to raise the bar higher still with Laddies Poker Two. The Newmarket trainer wants to give the grey her first race since landing a spectacular gamble at Royal Ascot in June – and, as such, only her second in two years – at the Breeders' Cup.

Paco Boy outmanoeuvred in Paris

Having divided nine of the past 10 titles between them, you suspect that not even Sir Michael Stoute or Aidan O'Brien would begrudge Richard Hannon a second trainers' championship to add to the one he won in 1992. Certainly, if the tide of goodwill among neutrals could be harnessed by his horses during the final two months of the season, Hannon would be past the post.

Markab is sweet for Candy but has O'Brien feeling sick

Two out of three ain't bad, you suppose, if you're talking Group One prizes in an afternoon. In little more than an hour, Aidan O'Brien had welcomed both Cape Blanco, after the Irish Champion Stakes, and Lillie Langtry, after the Matron Stakes, into the Leopardstown winner's circle. Between times, the one that got away was Starspangledbanner, fifth as favourite behind Markab in the Sprint Cup at Haydock.

Chris McGrath: Rip Van Winkle looks Champion choice to signal autumn awakening for Ballydoyle's fresh battalions

Two months to go to the Breeders' Cup, and Flat racing's big ranches have yet to bring the harvest in.

Stan Hey: 6-5 Against

I know what you're thinking – I'm a lickspittle who extols betting when it has a corrosive effect on sport, cricket allegedly being the latest victim.

Moore concedes title race on return to the saddle

Frankie Dettori led the jockeys into the sunlit parade ring here yesterday and suddenly noticed the cameras trained on the posse behind. He turned and sought out the champion jockey, who was maintaining a scrupulously stony aspect in the Queen's silks. "Don't smile, Ryan!" he shouted. Ryan Moore blushed, stared at the ground and succumbed to a helpless grin.

Moore finally returns but Hughes is still the main threat to Hanagan

A pleasant destination on any pretext, Salisbury today compounds its usual charms with some interesting sport and the first public sighting of the champion jockey in over three weeks.

Dunlop forecasts Snow for Leger

There is a tendency to belittle the St Leger, the oldest, longest and toughest of the five English Classics, as an irrelevance in the modern arena. Its distance, a gruelling, extended mile and three-quarters, is nowadays seen as way beyond the optimum for a potential stallion to advertise his merits, a kiss of death in the bloodstock industry that drives the sport on the track.

Hannon puts Paco Boy through sprint paces

Nothing daunted by some high-profile recent reverses with two-year-olds, the operations division at Richard Hannon's powerful Wiltshire headquarters is planning an audacious assault on the season's next Group One prize, Saturday's Sprint Cup at Haydock. The stable's star older miler Paco Boy was one of 20 entries left in the six-furlong contest yesterday and, despite having run over the distance only once since his juvenile season, is judged classy enough to enter the early market as third favourite.

Misty For Me on song for clear Moyglare win

Aidan O'Brien made it two from two in Ireland's top-level juvenile races this season as Misty For Me added yesterday's Moyglare Stud Stakes to the Phoenix Stakes taken by her stablemate Zoffany three weeks earlier. In both Curragh contests a hot shot from the Richard Hannon stable was eclipsed, the even-money Memory in the filly's case and the 4-9 Strong Suit in the colt's.

Chris McGrath: The late great George sired just one filly. Pray that she does him proud

You couldn't make it up. Nor, then, should you try.

Chris McGrath: The late great George sired just one filly. Pray she does him proud

You couldn't make it up. Nor, then, should you try.

Stan Hey: 6-5 Against

Where would you rather be right now?

Morny win fuels Simcock's dream of Guineas glory

Even Lindbergh needed someone to build him a plane. Spare a thought, then, for David Simcock, whose landmark success at Deauville on Sunday was overshadowed by the young jockey who steered his flying machine, Dream Ahead, in the Prix Morny. Only the previous day William Buick had won the Arlington Million in Chicago, and now he had completed a transatlantic Group One double within 16 hours. Here, unmistakably, was a momentous breakthrough in the one of the British Turf's most promising careers. And it was a pretty big day for Buick, as well.

Moore in no mood to surrender his title yet

The horse pencilled in for Ryan Moore's comeback duly won on his hometown track of Brighton yesterday – but Profondo Rosso was instead ridden by Kieren Fallon and it will be a few days yet before the champion jockey is fit to resume.

Fallon finished with his 'killer' racing schedule

After riding out so many storms, just getting back on to an even keel has proved commensurate with the most distant of Kieren Fallon's horizons, back in the spring. At the start of the season he was full of bullish talk about the jockeys' championship, various controversial prohibitions having intruded since he won it a sixth time, in 2003. With hindsight, however, he has come to see those yearnings as impractical. His presence in Chicago on Saturday, at the cost of three winners at Sandown, confirmed a shift of emphasis. From now on, it's going to be more about quality than quantity.

America's dirt die-hards dig in for war against artificial tracks

For Europeans, the American idyll is under threat. Not here in Chicago, admittedly. The 28th Arlington Million remained faithful to the premise of the first, that racing could truly become a game without frontiers. John Gosden saddled first and third, while the Americans successfully defended both the other big turf prizes of the weekend – including one with a colt switched to grass after running third in the Kentucky Derby. After unprecedented Breeders' Cup success in the past two years, on a congenial new surface at Santa Anita, Europeans could come here and conclude that the transatlantic sport is progressing towards a meaningful, lasting synthesis.

Buick lives the dream in fast lane

To ride so coolly, with such restraint, you can only be a young man in a hurry. In March, William Buick won a $5m race in Dubai on just his fourth ride for John Gosden. And now, taking his first meaningful mount in the United States, he has won the Arlington Million – a prize his new boss had been craving since 1981. He did so, moreover, with a ride of such seasoned nerve on Debussy on Saturday night that it is easy to underplay the gamble he is vindicating.

Starspangledbanner trampled in the rush by 100-1 shot Sole Power

As far as the body of the betting public is concerned, a 100-1 winner is not generally a cause for letting loose a champagne cork, for the very fact of its price means that not many punters would have been on.

Ponti set to stem Fallon's summer Surge

Kieren Fallon has the chance to crown a hot summer streak with the most significant success of his first year back in the saddle when he rides Summit Surge in the 28th Arlington Million here today.

Stan Hey: 6-5 Against

Punters often have losing streaks. They rationalise such sequences as a temporary loss of touch, or blame external circumstances such as the weather or the bloke who whispered a tip into their "shell-like".

Midday makes hay as Sariska refuses to race

On Ladies' Day at any modern race meeting, ladettes and their excesses are generally confined to the bars and grandstands. Here yesterday, though, the woman behaving worst was out on the track. Sariska, hot favourite for the day's centrepiece, the Darley Yorkshire Oaks, caused a wholly unwelcome sensation by standing stock-still as the starting gates opened for the Group One contest, refusing point-blank to race.

Dirar roars home in Ebor under confident Spencer

Yesterday's card was unique at this meeting in lacking a Group One prize, its focus instead being a mere handicap. But this is known as Ebor week for a reason, and Dirar reminded the festive county throng why. Thirty-one years ago the Ebor Handicap was won by Sea Pigeon, the dual champion hurdler, under 10st. Now, for the second season running, the richest handicap in Europe was plundered by an Irish trainer better known for prolific success over jumps.

Sariska looks stronger in duel of Oaks winners with Snow Fairy

Snow Fairy has matched Sariska in both the substance and style of her achievements last year, winning all out in the Oaks at Epsom before cruising home in softer conditions at the Curragh. But now they square up in the Darley Yorkshire Oaks today and the younger filly may be punished for her insolence. Being a far more imposing physical specimen, Sariska was always going to flourish in her third season and saw off her old rival, Midday, here at York in May before giving the top-class colt Fame And Glory a good race when returning to Epsom in June.