Thursday at Royal Ascot belonged to one man - Frankie Dettori - as the 48-year-old tore through the card, winning the opening four races at combined odds of 449-1. Having produced two fine winners on Wednesday the Italian carried seemingly unstoppable momentum into yesterday, taking the opening Norfolk Stakes on A'Ali (5-1), followed by two further successes on Sangarius (13-2) and Star Catcher (4-1). The best was to follow in the Ascot Gold Cup, as the mighty Stradivarius (Evs) retained his crown in gallant style to give Dettori his fourth winner of the day. Frankie's fun stopped there however, and he missed out in the final two races and on the chance to go through the card. Aidan O'Brien managed a solitary winner - Southern Pacific and Seamie Heffernan taking the day's closing handicap at 22-1 - but he will fancy his chances of a much improved showing on Friday. He saddles Commonwealth Cup (3.40pm) favourite Ten Sovereigns and Coronation Stakes (4.20pm) hotpot Hermosa, who could give him back-to-back Group One glory this afternoon.
An independent review group into the governance of the FAI will release their report on the association at 11.0am this morning, as it tries to move out of the long shadow cast by the recently departed former chief executive John Delaney. Many of the report's proposals will be on matters of administration, however the proposed make-up of the FAI's new board and council has potential to become a key battleground. Emmet Malone writes: "The absence of anyone who might serve to unify factions and start to drive things forward is one reason why there are those who strongly suspect that whatever is proposed by the governance review group today will not ultimately receive the support it needs to get through the association's AGM in July."
Elsewhere in his column this morning Jackie Tyrrell has looked at the six sides still left in the All-Ireland SHC - Tipperary, Limerick, Cork, Kilkenny, Wexford and Dublin - and he has asked two things. Firstly, what did they get out of the round-robin stage? And secondly, what do they need to work on in order to have a chance of lifting Liam MacCarthy later this summer? He also suggests that the increased number of fixtures in the championship could lead to some very tetchy encounters, as sides become sick of the sight of each other. He writes: "Tipperary and Limerick have at least one more game to play against each other and possibly two if they both stay alive to the All-Ireland final. You can say the same for Kilkenny and Wexford, even though it's less likely they'll both still be going in mid-August. Cork could find themselves playing Limerick for the fourth time in two seasons at some stage - they had only played each other four times in 12 years before 2018!"
Elsewhere the USA maintained their 100 per cent record in the World Cup last night, as they beat Sweden 2-0 to top their group and set a new tournament record for the most goals scored in the group stages with 18. The make-up for the last-16, which gets underway tomorrow, is now complete - with England to play Cameroon in the knockouts on Sunday afternoon.
And Australia have moved to the top of the Cricket World Cup table after they beat Bangladesh by 48 runs in a high scoring game at Trent Bridge yesterday. David Warner's 166 helped the Aussies post an imposing first innings total of 381-5 before the Tigers made an admirable 333-8 in response. Today hosts England take on Sri Lanka at Headingley before they must face Australia, India and New Zealand in their final three pool fixtures.
