At school we were taught that one way to observe an eclipse is to use a colander, although they told us to be careful not to strain our eyes… I remember asking my Dad if he could tell me what a solar eclipse was. He replied: “No Son.”

I have more jokes about the forthcoming eclipse, but I can’t use them all here because they get a bit dark…

Languishing in the comfortable slippers of yesteryear, I’m proud of my laggard status. I’ve never knowingly been described as an early-adopter, except perhaps in the world of starchy snacks…

Firmly located in the southern half of Britain (about two-and-a-half hours drive from the middle of the United Kingdom which is somewhere closer to Hexham Racecourse), Andy’s quick-getaway-office should be known as No.10 Midlands…

Decades passed when no new racecourses opened in Britain, and then just like London buses, three came along together: Fontwell Park in 1924, Hamilton Park in 1926 and Taunton in 1927.

Two hundred horses process through the town accompanied by cheering crowds. At the head of the cavalcade is a young man bedecked with a huge blue and white rosette, and a sash bearing the town’s crest, the words on which read “Dae Richt, Fear Nocht”…

Twelve years before the establishment of the United States of America a chestnut foal, with a narrow blaze and long white stocking on his off-hind leg, entered the world at East Ilsley in Berkshire.

Foaled in dim light as the moon passed directly between the Sun and the Earth, he was named Eclipse and he became one of the most influential horses in history…

It may seem deeply unpatriotic, but there will be plenty of British racecourse managers hoping that the English and Scottish soccer teams return from the World Cup soon…

A racecourse was built at Bromford Bridge in 1894. Located on flat water meadows beside the River Tame, the course was popular with spectators – making it an ideal target for Suffragettes, who burnt the grandstand down in 1914…

A warm breeze blows across the racecourse at Kelso, carrying with it the sound of drills, saws and angle-grinders. The groundstaff have removed several steeplechase fences from the track and are in the process of stripping them down to be refurbished…

There is a story that Scottish bred horses in the early 17th Century were speedier than their English counterparts due to ancestors that had escaped, to the Ayrshire shore, from shipwrecked remnants of the Spanish Armada…