I was impressed with the winner Big Brown in the recent Kentucky Derby 2008. He was one of my selections from looking at the runners’ form as I usually go for unbeaten horses in these major flat races. I also liked the fact that he looked a big strong horse rather than the often lightweight thoroughbreds often seen in the US. This subject has come into the spotlight following the sad death of the second horse Eight Belles after she broke both of her front ‘ankles’ or pasterns. My first thought was the horse had collapsed with with either a heart or broken blood vessel problem. I do not remember hearing of a horse breaking two legs in such a manner.

I much prefer to see horses run & train on grass rather than dirt, although the going on grass can be far from ideal in some circumstances. There were issues raised about running on dirt after the injury and death of George Washington in the very wet dirt conditions of the 2007 Breeders Cup. He too suffered a dislocated and fractured pastern, but on one leg rather than two. I wonder what are the relative frequencies of such injuries on the various racing surfaces?

The weather is starting to warm up but you can always tell the start of the spring season from the horse racing calendar. The Grand National, one of the biggest UK steeplechasing races of the year, was held last weekend. The first big flat-racing event in the UK, the Lincoln Handicap, took place the week before. Both mark the end of winter and the beginning of spring for me.

I prefer watching racing over fences to flat racing. I expect because of my background of competing in eventing and showjumping. I wasn’t sure if there were any steeplechasing events held in America but I recently found out about the NSA - National Steeplechase Association.  More than  200 races are held in the US every year and the main areas for steeplechasing are Pennsylvannia, Maryland and Virginia. The courses are usually 2-4 miles long and the jumps are 52 inch hurdles or timber.

One of the biggest annual UK National Hunt events is the 2008 Cheltenham Festival and it is fast approaching. This year it takes place from March 11-14. The main events are the Champion Hurdle & Gold Cup and this year’s favourites are Sizing Europe and Kauto Star. More to follow as the festival approaches.

The Breeders Cup 2007 will be held at Monmouth Park, New Jersey this weekend. I have been to Monmouth Races a few times and while it is quite a nice course, I did not expect that a major event such as the Breeders Cup would be held there.

I wanted to go to the Breeders Cup a few years ago when it was held at Belmont as Galileo from Europe was due to take part and I had been very impressed and wanted to see him run. However I struggled to get confirmation that he was actually running and when the weather was very cold, I decided not to go. He did run but not particularly well and finished fourth or fifth.

We were planning to go to the event this year but there are no general admission tickets on the day and there only appear to be 150-200 dollar seats left. There are due to be 45,000 people attending but I’m not sure how they are all going to fit in. The weather forecast is also bad so I expect we will be watching this on TV this year.

There are a number of major European horses taking part this year, the most well-known being Dylan Thomas who recently won the Arc de Triomphe. There are a number of major US winners including Curlin. One major US contender who will not be taking part is Rags to Riches who is currently injured. She suffered a hairline fracture to her right front pastern in her latest run and will be rested for 6 weeks of box rest. This is not expected to be a career-ending injury but she will not race again this year.