The horse racing week ahead and a brief looks back at British Champions Day

Hollie Doyle and Tom Marquand were having a well-deserved day off on Sunday with no Flat racing taking place in Britain. What a day they had at Ascot on British Champions Day! Did me no favours but good luck to them. Doyle has of course already broken her own British record for winners ridden in a year by a woman and is on course for 150+ winners in the calendar year this time around. Some achievement when you think we lost so many racedays to Covid! She leads boyfriend Marquand at the moment for 2020 by six winners. They really are horse racings golden couple at the moment and that's no bad thing for the game as they make the headlines for all the right reasons.

QIPCO British Champions Day was a funny old day with some fairly big priced winners, the soft going making it hard going for us punters; Gosden and Dettori having a nightmare of a day. You could make a case for the likes of Addeybb and The Revenat, though sadly I chose to back against them both! A great days racing nonetheless.

We have lots to look forward to this week with the Cheltenham October Meeting, The Showcase Meeting as they now call it, this weekend. Many see the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby as the start of the Jumps season proper, as do I, but there is no denying now autumn is upon us and some familiar equine names will be out in the coming weeks.

The Flat aint down just yet through and we have the Vertem Futurity Stakes (Racing Post Trophy to you and me) at Doncaster this weekend. The last three winners of the race, Saxon Warrior, Magna Grecia and Kameko, have gone on to triumph in the 2,000 Guineas the following season and it has thrown up a Derby winner or two in the past, such as my old mate High Chaparral, as well. As of Monday morning most of the names you would expect to see in there are and I will talk more about the race as we head towards to weekend.