Neil Graham

Director of Racing at Chelmsford City Racecourse. Former racehorse trainer and county chairman of the GWCT.

[History of Horse Racing @horsevault]

1989 Eclipse Stakes - Nashwan

[Neil Graham @NeilGraham5]

One of the all-time greats.

[History of Horse Racing @horsevault]

1989 Eclipse Stakes - Nashwan

[History of Horse Racing @horsevault]

1992 Sir Henry Cecil

[𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 @Old_But_Gold50s]

"Asturias (Leyenda)" by Isaac Albéniz is a classic work, originally composed for piano. However, its guitar arrangement has become one of the most iconic pieces in the Spanish classical guitar repertoire.

[Sports & Betting History by BestBettingSites @BettingSitesCom]

Henry Cecil at Newmarket Sales with the Marchioness of Tavistock

[Neil Graham @NeilGraham5]

@LydiaHislop For me, they are the most interesting and exciting races to watch and the longevity of the horses' careers allows you to engage with them. Stayers epitomise everything that is good about the thoroughbred - tough, sound and durable.

[Neil Graham @NeilGraham5]

@Patbrdh Ragusa Ibla.

[History of Horse Racing @horsevault]

Arkle's Roll Of Honour

[Neil Graham @NeilGraham5]

Hauntingly beautiful!

[𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 @Old_But_Gold50s]

John Williams plays Rodrigo's Concerto De Aranjuez (2nd Movement).
This makes my cry every time it's reached the 8th bar.. and knowing the story behind his grief when writing it.. it's easy to tell the sadness. .. but so beautiful- worth a good cry.

[𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 ✨🎵 @Hoang_HQ]

The whole soul of Spain is in this immortal melody!So beautiful✨🎧
🎸Asturias (Isaac Albéniz) - Alexandra Whittingham

[Neil Graham @NeilGraham5]

The much-missed Roger Scruton offering his usual clarity.

[Mark W. @DurhamWASP]

"I think conservatism is not about ideology, it’s about love. We have something, this country and its institutions and our way of being, and that’s what we’re holding on to. We don’t know why, but it’s all that we’ve been given, so why not?"

Sir Roger Scruton

[Neil Graham @NeilGraham5]

@CorneliusRacing Alan was a great journalist and a lovely man.

[Neil Graham @NeilGraham5]

Very true.

[Peter @fawwon1]

This was written in 1975!

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

HE KNEW THE DOSSIER WAS FAKE. WEEKS LATER HE WAS DEAD IN A FIELD

Dr David Kelly was Britain's foremost weapons inspector. He spent years inspecting Iraqi facilities, earned a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, and knew more about Saddam's arsenal than almost anyone in government.

In 2002, Tony Blair's government published a dossier claiming Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes. Britain went to war on the back of it. No weapons were ever found.

Kelly knew the dossier was rubbish. He said so, quietly, to a @BBC journalist. That conversation ended his career, his privacy, and ultimately his life.

The MOD carefully allowed his name to leak to the press as the BBC's source. He was then hauled before parliamentary committees, stripped apart by his own employer, and thrown to a media frenzy he never asked for.

Two days after giving evidence to MPs, the 59-year-old was found dead in woodland near his Oxfordshire home.

Instead of a proper inquest, Tony Blair asked Lord Hutton to run a private inquiry. Hutton concluded suicide. The inquest was opened, then suspended, and never resumed.

Eight senior legal and medical figures, including a coroner, later wrote to @thetimes saying the verdict was unsafe. They argued the wound found on Kelly's wrist, a severed ulnar artery, would not have caused sufficient blood loss to kill a healthy person.

There were no fingerprints on the knife found beside his body, even though he was not wearing gloves.

In 2011, Attorney General Dominic Grieve rejected all calls for a new inquest. He said the Hutton Inquiry was "tantamount to an inquest" and that further investigation would be dismissed by judges with irritation.

A man challenged the government's justification for a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. He was publicly destroyed, died in mysterious circumstances, never got a proper inquest, and the people who sent him into that media storm faced no consequences whatsoever.

Tony Blair became a Middle East Peace Envoy the following year. You genuinely could not make it up.

Sources: @BBCNews, openDemocracy, Hansard, @thetimes | Hutton Report

[🎼🌺Music Love♥️ @ThoNg676733]

On stage, Edith Piaf leaves everyone speechless by performing “Non, je ne regrette rien”! An icon of the French music scene! 🎶🎤

[Vodka & Seledka 🇬🇧 @seledka_vodka]

I am not one for superstitions or cheesy parallels, but @KemiBadenoch's response to the King's Speech came down like hail on London - and the weather today made the point unavoidable.

The content matched the storm. She eviscerated @Keir_Starmer as a Prime Minister in office but not in power. She mocked the Labour Party's incapacity for basic political competence - they cannot even stage a coup against their own leader.

She reminded the chamber that the Labour Party governs without a plan because they wasted their years in opposition. With the party now disintegrating in U-turns and scandals, she suggested their entire legacy may amount to free breakfast clubs and the scandalous Peter Mandelson appointment.

Labour backbenchers looked like they wanted trapdoors beneath their seats.

But I think there was a second audience feeling equally uncomfortable.

The Tory wets - the One Nation Conservatives who spent fourteen years diluting the Conservative Party into what the Labour Party looks like today: ideologically dissolved, incapable of governing, consumed by infighting.

Kemi Badenoch made clear references to the local election results as public rage against this political establishment. Conservatives were long attributed to that very establishment, the so-called Uniparty - perhaps rightly so.

Her leadership bid promised renewal of the Conservative Party with a clear intention to take it out of the Uniparty and leave the Labour Party as the only heir to that concept. The manifesto shifted hard right. She amplifies right-wing voices consistently. Her personal brand is staunchly Thatcherite.

Today's speech drew a line in the sand. The anger she channelled was the anger of the public, the mindset of the country - and it was heart-hitting. This marked a watershed: the Conservative Party is never returning to its diluted, wet, yellow years.

Muscular, authentic conservatism is back. Assertive, combative language in Parliament, matched with in-depth homework and policy-making - their alternative King's Speech proves that.

But there is a third audience too. The existing parliamentary party.

Sitting Conservative MPs are predominantly right-wing, but the parliamentary party still contains some of the wet wing One Nation Conservatives. This speech sent them a message, too.

The direction of travel is unflinchingly rightward. No wobble despite local election losses. No dithering.

The Conservative Party has officially left the building of the political establishment, the so-called Uniparty. It is not coming back.

P.S. This motivational poster (attached) should be hanging on every politician’s wall.

P.P.S. Obviously, go and watch the full speech. It might make the best 20 minutes of your day. I’ll link to it in replies.

[Michael Warburton @For_Film_Fans]

Remembering DAPHNE DU MAURIER — born 119yrs ago today.

Here she is in 1971 at her home in Cornwall giving her first ever TV interview.

[Mike Wass @MikeWass2]

OTD 1970 Ian Balding-trained Mill Reef (Geoff Lewis) made his racecourse debut, defeating 2-9 favourite Fireside Chat (Lester) by 4 lengths at Salisbury. In '71 won Derby, Eclipse, King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes & Prix de l'Arc. Career: won 12 of 14. 🏇🌟#RacingMemories

[History of Horse Racing @horsevault]

1999 Steve Cauthen

[Neil Graham @NeilGraham5]

In the sitting room at Mandabilly???

[Nicky Clark @MrsNickyClark]

A lovely clip of Daphne Du Maurier aged 64. I miss this generation of women who looked as they were and felt no shame.
Refusing to be crushed by ageist, sexist expectations & not being modified to look 35 forever.
#actingYourAgeCampaign #DontCastHerOut