LET'S hope the weather is kind to us this weekend and allows the local meeting at Kelso to go ahead. There's some good action in store there but more on that later.

NERVES are beginning to jangle in stables throughout the country as we approach the final two weeks in the Cheltenham build up.

PAUL Nicholls uttered the words that rival Gold Cup trainers won't have wanted to hear during a recent pre-Cheltenham press day at his Ditcheat yard when he claimed that Kauto Star would go to the Gold Cup in the 'form of his life'.

THE highlight of last weekend for me was undoubtedly Monet's Garden's win in the Betfair Ascot Chase.

FOR those interested in racing, trying to escape the fervour surrounding the fast-approaching Cheltenham Festival is nigh on impossible.

THE great debate around whether AP McCoy is the correct jockey for Gold Cup second favourite Denman was already alight and burning fiercely.

THE Denman Show rolls into town at Newbury this Saturday as Paul Nicholls' chaser has his first outing since that remarkable Hennessey win and his last run before the clash of the titans when he takes on stablemate Kauto Star in the Gold Cup at Cheltenham.

NICKY Henderson, perhaps fearing the possibility that weather may interrupt the next few weeks racing, ran a few of his major festival hopes last weekend.

IT'S great to see some familiar names among the runners at the new Meydan racecourse in Dubai.

ANOTHER weekend of Cheltenham clues and it was the return of two past festival heroes that grabbed the headlines.

THE official ratings for last year's flat season were recently published and, not surprisingly, the highest rated horse of the year is Sea The Stars.

SATURDAY saw the jumps season back in full swing following the weather-driven sabbatical and Twist Magic was the star of the show, winning the Victor Chandler Chase in authoritative fashion, cementing his status as clear second best behind Master Minded in the 2 mile chase division.

THE prelude to Cheltenham is now beginning to ramp up and we'll be highlighting the key races offering festival clues over the next eight weeks or so.

IT was great to see Kempton beat the freeze on Saturday, getting us back into regular turf National Hunt action.

OVER the last couple of columns we've been having a look at the championship events at the Cheltenham festival, with a view to unearthing some ante-post value.

AS I write the thaw seems to have set in and we're hopefully in line to get turf racing action back this week, with Musselburgh hopeful that Friday's meeting will go ahead.

THE decimation of the midweek cards caused by the weather had me taking a bit of an in-depth look ahead to Cheltenham with a view to unearthing a few potential ante-post bets.

THE 2009 cobwebs have been blown away and the New Year is with us but it looks like being a bit of a stuttering start on the racing front as bad weather plays havoc with the turf meetings.

A COUPLE of weeks ago I took a look at the flat horses and personalities who had made a big splash in the last decade. This time it's the turn of the jumping fraternity.

WITH Christmas on the horizon the thoughts of racing people are not on what Santa will be bringing when he makes his merry way down the chimney, it's on what will win the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day.

AS we approach the end of the decade somewhat unglamorously christened the 'noughties' and head towards the next ten years (which I heard the other day on radio might be termed the 'Teens') it's interesting to look back and consider the horses and people who've shaped racing since the turn of the millennium.

MORE Cheltenham Festival clues last weekend as Khyber Kim made an already unclear Champion Hurdle picture even murkier as he made short work of Celestial Halo and Punjabi in the International Hurdle.

IT'S approaching the time of year when the end of year accolades are dished out and at The Racing Forum we've just started inviting nominations for our own end of season Racing Forum Awards.

PAUL Nicholls continues to show, time after time, that he currently has no equals among the training fraternity when it comes to getting horses ready for a big test.

IT'S a big day for a rising Borders racing star on Friday when Hawick trained Lie Forrit makes the long journey to Newbury to contest the 2.05 race, the Pertemps Handicap Hurdle qualifier.

FANTASTIC action at the weekend as Kauto Star won his third Betfair Chase, this time by the very narrowest of margins from Nigel Twiston Davies' Imperial Commander.

THE Cartier Awards, flat racing's equivalent of the Oscars, were announced earlier this week and it was no surprise to find that Sea The Stars lifted the lion's share of the honours, winning Three Year Old Colt of the Year and Horse of the Year.

THERE was a Scottish flavour on Saturday at Cheltenham's 'Open' meeting as Lie Forrit triumphed in the Jardine Lloyd Thompson Handicap Hurdle for Hawick based trainer William Amos.

ANY doubts surrounding the arrival of the jumps season proper are firmly dispelled by Cheltenham's Open meeting which gets underway this Friday and continues through Saturday and Sunday.

LAST weekend's Breeder's Cup meeting lived up to the hype when superstar filly Zenyatta put up a scintillating display to come from way off the pace, scythe through the field and win the Breeders Cup Classic in spectacular fashion.

THE Breeders Cup is, in racing terms at least, a fairly recent addition to the calendar.

SATURDAY saw some good jumping action with a great finish to the Charlie hall Chase at Wetherby.

HAVING just said goodbye to Sea The Stars, who is off to stud, flat racing fans will have rubbed their eyes in disbelief on Saturday afternoon as St Nicholas Abbey announced himself as a potential successor to John Oxx's superstar.

THE Racing Post Trophy, due to be run at Doncaster on Saturday is, in many ways, an ideal preparation race for two year olds who have the following year's Derby as a long-term target.

TOUGH day for punters last Saturday with a 33/1 winner in the Dewhurst and a 14/1 winner in the Champion Stakes.

IT'S difficult to follow last weekend's action, with an exciting finish in the Cambridgeshire at Newmarket on the Saturday preceding a fantastic day at Longchamp when we saw a true racing giant in Sea The Stars, but Ascot and York stage some competitive, quality flat racing this Saturday while the jumps season begins to get into top gear with a good card at Chepstow.

ANY lingering doubts that Sea The Stars might not last a truly run mile and a half were well and truly dispelled on Sunday as he sealed his place in the gallery of greats with a wonderful win in the Prix de L'Arc De Triomphe.

SCOTTISH racing enjoys one of its gala days on Saturday with the running of the Ayr Gold Cup (off time 3.10).

SATURDAY'S St Leger saw the Godolphin team back on the classic trail, Mastery providing them with their first classic win in the UK since Rule Of Law won the Leger in 2004.

THE St Leger holds claim to the title of the world's oldest classic and at Doncaster on Saturday the race will be run for the 233rd time.

SEA The Stars' performance in Saturday's Irish Champion Stakes has seen him elevated to a provisional rating of 140 by Timeform, the highly respected organisation whose analysis of racecourse merit has long been judged to be a standard in the industry.

SATURDAY sees the 43rd running of the Betfred Sprint Cup at Haydock (off time 3.30). Only raised to Group 1 status in 1988 the Sprint Cup roll of honour is littered with some of the great sprinters of their day.

DELEGATOR provided another big fillip for the Guineas form with a conclusive win in Saturday's Celebration Mile.

BREEDING a champion racehorse is a mixture of science and art.

CONGRATULATIONS are due once again to Musselburgh who, despite some fairly dismal weather conditions, put on a great day's family entertainment on Sunday (23rd August).

ALL eyes at York on Tuesday were on Sea The Stars and the John Oxx trained colt didn't fail to provide something special by notching his fourth Group 1 race of the season and adding still further to his towering reputation.

THERE was a time when huge crowds gathered on York racecourse not to watch the racing but to witness the public hangings which regularly took place.

PEOPLE often proffer that 'the bookie always wins'. For most of us that statement has a ring of unmistakeable truth to it but for a minority of racing punters a good living and consistent profits can be made by obtaining an 'edge' over the markets.

LAST Saturday (8th Aug) saw the latest Shergar Cup at Ascot.

THE turf flat season is now well over the halfway mark and fears that it wasn't going to be a vintage year seem slightly wide of the mark.

GOODWOOD got off to a glorious start this week with Harbinger staking a solid St Leger claim with a convincing display in the Gordon Stakes and the flying two year old Monsieur Chevalier showing a sparkling turn of foot to scythe through the field and win the Molcecomb Stakes.

SATURDAY'S King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes saw Conduit confirm his status as a major challenger for the remaining middle distance honours and Sir Michael Stoute must be excitedly contemplating an Autumn campaign for the horse.

THE King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes heralds the beginning of a great week with Glorious Goodwood just around the corner.

LESS than a week now until the UK's biggest all-aged middle distance race of the year, The King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

THE Scottish summer racing season is in full swing and I enjoyed a great night's racing in the evening sunshine at Musselburgh on Monday (June 29th).

THE Irish Derby was robbed of much of its interest last weekend after Sea The Stars withdrawal but our selection Fame And Glory stamped his authority on the race to win comfortably and raise further questions about just what might have happened had there been a stronger pace set at Epsom.

WITH the dust almost now settled on Royal Ascot 2009 it was great to hear that Aidan O'Brien is considering a middle distance campaign for quadruple Gold Cup winner Yeats.

ANOTHER fantastic Royal Ascot last week. The undoubted highlight was Yeats’ win in the Gold Cup, his fourth win in the race, setting a new all-time record.

ROYAL Ascot is the festival jewel in flat racing's crown.

ONLY two years until Royal Ascot celebrates its 300th anniversary and the meeting still retains much of its glamour and kudos.

SINCE last week’s Derby, debate on The Racing Forum (www.theracingforum.co.uk) has been fierce on the subject of whether the Triple Crown is now an anachronism which no longer has any significance in the British racing calendar.

THE Derby lived up to most of the pre-race expectations last Saturday by providing us with the first horse in twenty years to do the 2,000 Guineas/Derby double.

I'LL need to dust off the history books but I'm almost certain that no trainer has ever numerically dominated a Derby field in the way that Aidan O'Brien's Ballydoyle team are set to dominate Saturday's race.

FRIDAY sees the beginning of the next weekend of classic action on the flat with the Oaks at Epsom. For fillies and over the same course and distance as Saturday’s Derby, the Oaks is usually made up of promising staying types who’ve shown dramatic improvement when stepped up to a distance in a classic trial and speedier types who’ve run well in one of the Guineas, be it in Ireland, England or France.

FOLLOWING on from last weekend’s Turf Talking article when I looked at the first five of Lester Piggott's nine Derby wins, we complete that review today with the last four episodes of Lester’s remarkable, record-breaking Epsom career.

THE most exciting performance of last weekend was surely Mastercraftsman’s win in the Irish 2,000 Guineas.

LAST week I had a delve into Derbys past by having a look at the Derby winners of Vincent O’Brien. I thought this week, continuing my self-styled build up to the big race, I’d resurrect some of the memories of O’Brien’s chief ally during the 1960’s and 70’s, one Lester Piggott. Such are Lester’s Epsom feats that I’ll cover his achievements in two articles.

THERE was an interesting thread on our forum the other week on whether seven furlongs was a distance for specialists. More credence may have been given to that argument at the weekend when Paco Boy looked like he palpably failed to stay Newbury’s testing mile in the Lockinge Stakes.

THIS week Aidan O'Brien tightened his grip on the market for the Derby by sending out the 1-2 in the important Derby trial at York, the Dante Stakes.

A WEEK of classic trials last week didn't seem to be shedding a lot of light on the Epsom Derby and Oaks puzzles.

THE flat season now feels like it is into top gear following last weekend's Guineas meeting and the midweek Chester meeting.

LAST year's two year old form took a severe knock at the weekend with the two Guineas races at Newmarket falling to relatively unexposed but highly promising horses.

IT'S barely credible, given that Cheltenham seems only five minutes ago, but the first of the season's flat classics will be run this weekend at Newmarket.

THE victory of Hennessy in Saturday's Betfred Gold Cup provided yet another landmark in the glittering career of AP McCoy.

AS the Guineas weekend approaches I took a look, in the last article, at Brigadier Gerard's win in the 1971 2,000 Guineas.

ONLY just over a week to go now to the first of the season's flat classics, the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket. This is swiftly followed by the 1,000 Guineas which is run on the following day.

RACING journalism is all the poorer this week following the death of Sir Clement Freud.

ONE of the features of the last few flat racing seasons has been the dearth of real charisma among the leading jockeys.

NO-one who read last week's Turf Talking should have been in the slightest bit surprised when Mon Mome popped up in the Grand National on Saturday at the incredible odds of 100/1.

IT'S upon us once again, that annual gut-wrenching, spine-tingling, hair-raising helter-skelter of a horse race known throughout the world as The Grand National.

LAST Saturday saw the 14th running of the Dubai World Cup which was won in great style by the US trained Well Armed.

ONLY just over a week to go to the Grand National, the day when racing takes centre stage on the sporting calendar.

ONE of the topics often discussed on my Racing Forum (www.theracingforum.co.uk) is what factors make for a successful and profitable approach to betting.

WE'RE only one week away from what I like to think of as the start of the flat racing season proper, the Lincoln meeting at Doncaster, which heralds the start of the year's turf programme.

GOODNESS me, a week ago and Cheltenham was just under way. Now it seems like it was an age ago, and it also seems like we have to wait an eternity for the next one.

ANOTHER great week's racing at Cheltenham is now almost over as I write (Friday morning) and what an exciting week we have had, particularly in the Championship races.

ALL winter long the jump racing season edges inexorably towards those four days at Cheltenham in March which will define a generation of hurdlers and chasers, sealing reputations and creating champions.

CHELTENHAM now looms large on the horizon and I'll continue my series of spotlights on some of the major races by focusing on the World Hurdle, which will be run on Thursday 12th March.

FOLLOWING on from Friday's column where I began looking at some of the upcoming Cheltenham races by looking at the Gold Cup, we'll now move on to the hurdling blue riband event, The Champion Hurdle, which is run on Tuesday March 10, the first day of the festival meeting.

CHELTENHAM is now approaching fast and most horses have now completed their racecourse preparations. With that in mind, it is now an ideal time to begin focusing on some of the key Festival races and drawing up a few short-lists of the main contenders.

NACARAT, and that recent record-breaker AP McCoy, did us a grand turn by absolutely hosing up in Saturday's Racing Post Chase at a very pleasing 10/1.

ONE of my favourite stories concerning the late, lamented Private Eye columnist Jeffrey Bernard concerns the occasion when, despairing at the prospect of an afternoon without having a bet on the horses following the snow-enforced abandonment of all the day's meetings, Bernard and his drinking buddies find an outlet for their gambling habits by staging races up in a flat using pet cats as the horse-substitutes.