Selected tips from courses in the UK and Ireland.

When the Bush administration decided to go to war in 2003, David Frum found himself at the centre of a daunting messaging effort. He looks back on the fraught times that followed Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ speech

Mortality

Trainer Henry Candy has a Group Three sprint at the Curragh next month as a possible next-race target for Markab.

So You Think is set to face 10 rivals as he bids to make amends for last year’s defeat in the 150th Anniversary of Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot tomorrow.

Richard Hughes may have suffered disappointment in the feature race of the day at the Curragh, but Cay Verde provided some consolation as he booked his Royal Ascot ticket.

David Marnane plans to let a back-on-song Santo Padre take his chance in Saturday’s Weatherbys Ireland Greenlands Stakes at the Curragh.

Aidan O'Brien's Await The Dawn has been drawn close to the inside in stall two in the Group One Dubai Duty Free over nine furlongs at Meydan on Saturday.

Dubai World Cup hopes get one last chance to stake their claims for the March 31 feature as they line up in the third round of the Al Maktoum Challenge at Meydan.

Royal Ascot and Newmarket will be under consideration for Gamilati after the Godolphin filly created a huge impression in powering to success in the UAE 1000 Guineas at Meydan yesterday.

A BOOK bought for me as a birthday present a few years ago bears an inscription which says: “I saw this and thought of you.”

AS a believer (and recovering atheist), I am constantly bemused by the irrationalities/contradictions of my former comrades.

TRIBUTES poured in yesterday for journalist and atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens, who died aged 62.

The British-born author and journalist Christopher Hitchens has died. He is best known for his provocative best-seller 'God is Not Great'.

Martin Amis: The Biography, Richard Bradford

SO YOU THINK will face five rivals in tomorrow’s Red Mills Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.

The unbeaten Power heads a team of six possibles from the Aidan O’Brien stable for Sunday’s Keeneland Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh.

Hayley Turner landed her first Group One triumph when steering Dream Ahead to a magnificent success in the Darley July Cup at Newmarket.

JOHN KIELY’S Oneeightofamile is the nap choice in the Irish Daily Mirror Handicap at Limerick tonight.

ANOTHER day, another existential crisis.During the week we were struck down by one of those periodic ‘what’s it all about, eh’ phases, the kind that forces you to evaluate what you’re doing.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said today his religious beliefs did not play a role in his decision to support the US invasion of Iraq.

Michael Halford, who will saddle favourite Casamento in today’s Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster, received a timely boost when Invincible Ash captured the listed Mercury Stakes at Dundalk last night.

Frankie Dettori won his second successive William Hill Ayr Gold Cup and Dandy Nicholls his sixth as Redford streaked home at 14-1 today.

Barney McGrew and Kaldoun Kingdom will carry joint-top weight in the William Hill Ayr Gold Cup on Saturday.

LEADING race mare Dar Re Mi has been retired.

IT’S a great pity that you chose to reprint (April 28) Christopher Hitchens’s ridiculous defamation of Pope Benedict XVI in which he presents a preposterous argument for charging the pontiff with involvement in organised crime.

Light From Mars proved strongest as he ran out a comfortable winner of the Best Price Guarantee At coral.co.uk Handicap today, the opening event of York's final meeting this term.

Hitchens has been supplemented at a cost of £7,500 (€8,405) for Wednesday's Duke Of York Stakes on the Knavesmire.

Mark Johnston’s Lovelace will shoulder top weight as he bids for compensation for a narrow Newmarket defeat in Saturday’s totesport International at Ascot.

OLIVER BRODERICK (Letters, October 22) says he is going to ask Fr Con McGillicuddy for his bullet-proof vest to protect himself after his long dismissal of all Richard Dawkins’s “disciples” and the apparent lack of “evidence” to support Dawkins’s arguments.

Paul Cole could switch Luck Money’s attentions to racing at the highest level after the colt plundered a huge €1m prize in the Parknasilla Hotel Goffs (C&G) Million at the Curragh.

Luck Money struck gold by leading home a British one-two-three in the Parknasilla Hotel Goffs (C & G) Million at the Curragh.

ONCE upon a time and far, far away, there were these galaxies.

British journalist Christopher Hitchens today claimed that former US President Bill Clinton was spying for the CIA while they were students together at Oxford University.

THE Pope yesterday approved a miracle attributed to Mother Teresa's intercession, paving the way for the nun who dedicated her life to the poor to be beatified and possibly made a saint.

England’s stunning victory over Denmark today booked a potential quarter-final clash against four-time champions Brazil in Shizuoka next Friday.