LADS and lasses are different – fact. Forget it, lads, at your peril! Stable lads do get fond of their horses, even attached to them in some instances. But lasses can and do get emotionally involved with their four-footed charges. Remember Janice Coyle and Desert Orchid?

Headlines sell newspapers - fact. Nonetheless, the front page of Saturday’s Irish Field: ‘DREAM TEAM - Tony Mc-Coy joins forces with Denman for the first time’, Accompanied by a photo-montage superimposing McCoy’s face in place of Denman’s former jockey evoked an immediate reaction - hubris. It is a Greek term for mocking the gods.

WHAT a talking horse Captain Cee Bee has become, now an even shorterpriced favourite for the Arkle at Cheltenham following a bloodless victory at Naas last Saturday.

THE recent, involuntary mid-winter racing recess obliged racing scribes to think ‘outside the box’.

Sea The Stars is the greatest horse to have been trained on the Curragh of Kildare! If this claim is true, it can only be based on that most invidious of yardsticks – comparison.