A BIT CLASS 
A bit of class comes to the house - the Royal meeting at Ascot kicks of tonight - and wow, what an opening gambit - the clash of Goldikova (13 times Gr 1 winner) and Canford Cliffs in the 1600m Gr 1 Queen Anne?
Goldikova won last year's renewal and has won three successive Breeders Cups so to call her a freak is an understatement but this should be a ripper to kick off the card.
The Gr 1 King's Stand sees Aussie Star Witness line up as the pre-post favourite for trainer Danny O'Brien and jockey Steven Arnold. It is a tough King's Stand and i am predicting there will be a big improvement tonight from the Hungarian superstar Overdose, to be ridden by Andy Suborics and I would also not be surprised to see the Hong Kong mare Sweet Sanette (Jamie Spencer) be super competitive.
The third Gr 1 tonight should be a procession - Frankel steps up to the plate in the Prince Of Wales. Of course Aussies have So Yopu Think going around tomorrow night and Hinchinbrook on Saturday night in the Gr 1 Golden Jubilee. O'Brien has also said there is some chance that Star Witness will back up all being well - so we are in for some late nights - but some great racing.
EVERYONE who saw the last race at Kembla on Saturday is raving about the win of the Matthew Smith-trained Bielski - a son of Ratki. The debutante absolutely blitzed his rivals to win effortlessly.
A 75K purchase at the Inglis Classic Sale, Bielski looks well above average.
SINCERO'S WIN IN the Gr 1 Stradbroke Hcp (1400m) at Eagle Farm on Saturday was one for the good guys. The horse has done a great job, as has his trainer Steve Farley and the group of people in the horse showed a good deal of nerve to knock back several offers from Hong Kong for the galloper.
He is a top class horse, and should he stay sound he will win much more than the "mill" they knocked back from Hongkers - and they are going to have much more fun as well.
MOHAWK SCORED a hometown win in the $20,000 Beaudesert Cup in Queensland on Saturday for trainer Greg Cornish and his partner and jockey Sheree Drake. The race attracted a good field - which was in stark contract to the previous Saturday up north when Victorian cast-off Molotov won the Gatton Cup which attrached only two runners.
How times change? The Gatton Cup was once a quality race and Oompala won the race for trainer John Wallace before later that year running third in the Melbourne Cup.
I have never been able to understand Queensland Racing's decision to drop the Friday TAB meetings at Esk, Kilcoy, Beaudesert and Gatton.
Sure, they are not the greatest tracks in Queensland - but they had character and there is no prettier racecourse anywhere than Esk (with the possible exception of Tumut) in the high country of NSW.
BROTHER JOHN AND JEFF Kehoe both rode winners on Saturday - a long way apart. John rode a winner at Goondiwindi in south-western Queensland and Jeff piloted a winner at Parkes in western NSW.
MITCHELL BELL continued his great run of form on near city tracks when he landed a winning treble at Kembla on Saturday. Mitch has been knocking in winner after winner on the country TAB circuit in recent times and is back riding as well as he was when he was a boom apprentice with Mark Mason in Tamworth.
THE MINING TOWN of Mt Isa came alive on Saturday with the running of their $20,000 Cup - taken out by Sandwood, ridden by former Albury jockey Rod Sue-San.
THE VALUE OF AUSSIE AND KIWI groundings is again coming to the fore in Hong Kong as apprentice Alvin Ng looks certain to be the next boom kid in HK.
Ng had ridden 70 winners in NZ before being summoned back to Hong Kong by racing officialdom following the problems with another apprentice losing his license.
In just two meetings at Shatin, Ng has already booted home three winners and he looks set to follow in the footsteps of Matt Chadwick who has swept all before him since returning to Hong Kong after serving his apprenticeship in Australia.
It is again testament to the grounding these boys get downunder and I can foresee a time where Australia and New Zealand will have served its purpose and Hong Kong is probably totally dependent on local jockeys that are products of the Australian and New Zealand system.
There are already moved underfoot in Hong Kong to stop any more trainers licenses being granted to non-Chinese and even foremen who have worked for successful stables find it hard to graduate now to the licensed trainers ranks.