An odds-on favourite already bestrides the Epsom betting, and the flat-out success of Mickdaam in the trial staged across the mire here yesterday did nothing to alter that.

The established Ballydoyle stars are scheduled to glitter at Newmarket at the weekend, with Camelot and Maybe, last year's top-rated juvenile colt and filly, short-priced favourites for the 2,000 Guineas and 1,000 Guineas respectively. But there have been echoes of light from some of their less-exposed Aidan O'Brien stablemates, notably the filly Kissed at Navan yesterday and the colt Imperial Monarch at Sandown on Saturday.

The barometer may be set fair for its most venerable prize, given a spectacular vote of confidence from the sponsors of the Derby yesterday, but otherwise the Turf seemed to lie in a soggy, midwinter time-warp. The steeplechases scheduled at Punchestown were abandoned, and the remaining hurdle and bumper races run in conditions bordering on the farcical. An inspection will be required this morning to pass the course for a card that features the outstanding mare, Quevega.

George Galloway's unlikely victory in Bradford West has sparked the biggest ever bookies' by-election payout in history, a leading firm said today.

The leisure and gaming industries were spitting tax yesterday as they faced a hit of up to £50m from the new Machine Games Duty which will affect all fixed-odds betting terminals as well as fruit machines and other gaming terminals.

It is going to happen some day. And only when it does, perhaps, will everyone truly appreciate what has gone before.

One of the classiest jumpers ever seen, he has made being a marathon man sexy and can rewrite the record books at the Festival

The theory that the jockeys' championship is nowadays a brute measure of stamina and consistency, rather than a proof of essential class, has this week been roundly rejected by the Maktoum family. On Tuesday, they hired Silvestre De Sousa to ride for Godolphin; and yesterday Sheikh Hamdan filled his impending vacancy, as retained jockey, with the only man to top De Sousa in last year's standings. For Paul Hanagan, the appointment is a gratifying breakthrough even after consecutive titles in 2010 and 2011, which had seemed to consummate long, uncomplaining service away from the big stage.

Knowing the way they have always done things round here, it is safe to assume that yesterday's date has long been circled in red on the office calendar – and that any such prompt had precious little to do with an invasion of film crews and reporters. For by the time David Pipe hosted his pre-Festival open morning, he had already completed the most significant clerical chore of the entire year. Entries for the Cheltenham handicaps closed at noon, and the dozens submitted from Pond House surely included at least one that will get the job done next month.

Originally devised to keep the racing and betting industries on the move during exactly this kind of freeze, the all-weather has since evolved into a surface for all seasons. Many trainers nowadays like to start off well-bred young horses on the polytrack rather than on firm, heavy or unevenly watered turf.

While one rising star hesitated before his own career crossroads, another yesterday struck out with rather more conviction than most appeared to perceive. Grands Crus, it turns out, will not test the water for the Betfred Cheltenham Gold Cup at the Festival trials meeting tomorrow; but the rehearsal on the same card of Big Buck's has surely obtained fresh interest after Zaidpour's emergence as a plausible new force in a division, staying hurdlers, the champion has so dominated over the past three years.

Standfirst in 12pt if used as a single column standfirst like thissdf gsdf gsdf dfsg sdfgbikers, are fighting back

Inside Track

In his 20 years at Ditcheat, Paul Nicholls reckons he has never known a tempest to compare with the one that prompted him to abandon third lot yesterday. At the home of the Derby, meanwhile, staff had been evacuated after roofing and insulation was ripped off Epsom's new grandstand. And racing at Ayr was abandoned, despite somehow surviving an initial inspection – by mid-morning it turned out that broken and hanging branches on a nearby tree would prevent the RaceTech lorry taking its position, and thereby the provision of television, commentary and PA services.