Racing Diary

Simon Cowell,

Andy Finch certainly knows how to pick them and seems a pretty confident young man, too, based on his winning entry to the Discover Racing campaign's 'name your own race' competition.
Finch suggested the 'Andy Finch and Sally Bowler Engagement Stakes', even before he asked Ms Bowler to marry him. The future Mr & Mrs Finch's Engagement Stakes to mark the couple's forthcoming union this year is likely to be run next month at Wolverhampton.
Indeed the wedding might have taken place there had it not been a bit pricey, and more importantly, if Ms Bowler liked racing as much as her future husband.

All power to the Jockey Club's John Maxse who regularly features on television trying his best to explain the complex rules of the sport.
Having been promoted on 1 January to director of public affairs, the 34-year-old will now carry extra onscreen clout and has resolved to "try and spread a cheerful and open demeanour to those who work in the Jockey Club, and not just reserve it for dealing with the outside world."
Today, though, in an amateur riders' race at Leicester, he has to demonstrate his ability in the saddle on Martin Pipe's Canadiane.

American gamblers are all heart. When Tim Sullivan, a New Yorker who admits he gets "the staggers" when he bets over $50, recently scooped a jackpot in his local off-track betting parlour, he spent it on financing the happy retirement of a racehorse.
After counting his winnings, Sullivan identified as a deserving cause the "just slow and old" Lese Majeste, an 11-year-old gelding, who had run 190 times in nine years and hadn't won for 45 starts.
He contacted trainer Carlos Figueroa and not only agreed to pay for Lese Majeste to enjoy a less-demanding life at the Kentucky state Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, but also paid for two other old stagers in training with Figueroa finally to call it a day.

Wishes of better luck this time round to The Observer sport's section, from the racing trade publication Pacemaker. The Turf magazine's January edition features a review of tips that the Sunday paper's resident pundits handed out this time last year with the intention of making 2001 a winning 12 months. As Pacemaker records, from 15 selections and £100 a bet, Observer experts managed a single winner - 6-4 on Tim Henman to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals.

Like The Observer, our slate is clean for 2002. That means, with racing's greatest ever loser Quixall Crossett likely to be retired having completed his century of consecutive defeats, a new search for Horse of the Year begins, a new Marie Antoinette award winner will emerge, and we'll again record the longest queue to the bathroom at a racecourse over the next 12 months. Well worth the wait.