Jamie Spencer had just won the 8th and last race of the flat racing season to tie with Seb Sanders in the closest ever battle for the jockeys championship. As jockey Eddie Ahern switched his whip to his left hand to prevent Omnicat going over to the rail the horse then altered course sharply to starboard, unshipped Ahern and bore down on the hapless Sanders. With a hundred yards to go Sanders was in front only for an extraordinary Godolphin-trained debutant called Omnicat to sweep ahead...

It is expected that the seven vacant positions with the 11-member RVL board will be finalised this week after an exhaustive and controversial selection process. The 27-strong rebel group, who included leading trainers Lee Freedman and David Hayes and Makybe Diva's owner Tony Santic, wrote a letter to Racing Minister Rob Hulls declaring that: "Racing revenues and returns to us, the industry participants at the proverbial 'coalface' since 2001, have done nothing but diminish in real terms....

Sheikh Mohammed, who entered the horse business in the 1970s, has long been acquiring broodmares overseas and has done so for the last decade in America, Ferguson said. The flurry of buying at the recent breeding-stock auctions was driven by the availability of attractive horses and a desire to complement stallion purchases like Derby winner Street Sense and runner-up Hard Spun. The 2001 purchase of Jonabell and the creation of a Darley stallion operation there have led to more recent...

The school district has only four full-time dairy farms, and those farmers' children have graduated. North, who wants to be a veterinarian, enjoyed spending time with a Ridgeland vet last summer for her FFA proficiency program. Scheil knows of no other high school ag programs or FFA chapters without students who live on farms. Scheil rotates offerings of backyard agriculture, equine science, landscaping and horticulture, wildlife ecology and more. Students also benefit from a stage and...

An emerging issue in the election must be whether the voters trust the same franchise to run all nine governments, something we have never seen in Australia, writes David Fint. Indonesia's orangutans were heard cheering loudly from the treetops yesterday when Australian Prime Minster John Howard announced that taxpayers would chip in half a million dollars to help ensure their continued existence. Please login to continue Your Email Password: Remember Me Forgot password? The equine...