Box clever by backing Burano and Queensberry Rules in Hunt Cup June 17, 2014 BILL ESDAILE PREVIEWS THE ROYAL HUNT CUP, DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE AND QUEEN MARY STAKES PUNTERS like nothing more than solving a complex handicap puzzle and there is no race run at Ascot all week that is more difficult to find the winner of than the Royal Hunt Cup (5.00pm). There have been only two successful [...]
Take Stoute to enhance Duke of Cambridge record with Integral June 17, 2014 SKY LANTERN is the current favourite for today’s Group Two Duke of Cambridge Stakes (4.25pm) and considering she’s a four-time winner at the top level and is dropping a grade, many of you will think the 3/1 available is fair value. But I think she is begging to be taken on. Unlike yesterday’s Queen Anne [...]
Spanish Pipedream to show Queen Mary rivals a clean pair of heels June 17, 2014 THE QUEEN Mary Stakes (3.05pm) is always a difficult race to decipher with a huge field of mostly unexposed two-year-old fillies going hell for leather over a straight five furlongs. It’s fast and furious and today’s edition looks another blinder. Despite the large number of runners, only three of the last 10 runnings have been [...]
Mukhadram to chase home superstar Treve June 17, 2014 BILL ESDAILE PREVIEWS THE PRINCE OF WALES’S, SANDRINGHAM AND JERSEY STAKES THERE is always a horse or two that steals the show at Royal Ascot. Last year it was the Queen’s Estimate and in 2012 it was Frankel and Black Caviar. Without doubt the animal with the best chance of etching its name on Ascot [...]
Energy crunch: Oil prices rise over Iraq fears as cost of gas jumps after Ukraine cut-off June 16, 2014 Fears of a disruptive energy price spike grew yesterday as conflict escalated in Iraq and Ukraine’s gas supplies from Russia were abruptly cut off. Experts warned that growing geopolitical risk could send oil and gas prices sharply upwards, prompting a more severe market reaction and even a slowdown in the global economic recovery. The US [...]
Shell and BP to announce big trade deals with China June 16, 2014 SHELL and BP, the UK’s two biggest oil companies, are expected to announce trade deals with China today, on the second day of Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Britain. The deals will form part of what is expected to be an £18bn package being brokered between firms in the two nations by the Chinese and [...]
One in three companies is loss-making – that’s far too many June 16, 2014 IT WAS Milton Friedman, the great Chicago economist, who put it best. Company bosses are employed by shareholders; and management’s responsibility is to follow investors’ wishes, namely “make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom”. Of course, [...]
Vince Cable to face probe over Oakeshott poll June 16, 2014 BUSINESS secretary Vince Cable is under investigation by the Parliamentary standards commissioner Kathryn Hudson, following a complaint over polling in his constituency, paid for by Lord Oakeshott. Cable’s aide Tessa Munt MP is also being investigated, following a complaint by Political Scrapbook that the members did not declare polling, which is thought to have cost [...]
British support for free trade starts to grow June 16, 2014 MORE BRITONS are coming around to the idea that free trade is good for the economy, the British Social Attitudes Survey shows today. And the fear of foreign businesses harming local firms is also showing some signs of fading, according to the study from the researchers at NatCen. The 2103 survey found 48 per cent [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 17 June 2014 June 16, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Cameron faces setback over Juncker David Cameron’s campaign to head off Jean-Claude Juncker’s election to the EU’s most high-profile job is facing its most serious challenge yet with Germany pressing for a vote to override the British Prime Minister’s objections as early as next week. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has told European [...]