The husband of the Australian boxer Trish Devellerez, who was hospitalised after suffering head injuries in a fight last Saturday, expects she will be well enough for him to speak to her today.
“I am a relieved man,” Rocco Devellerez said from Christchurch Hospital. “The signs she’s showing means she’s sure to make a full and complete recovery.” Devellerez is also his wife’s trainer.Trish Devellerez suffered a head injury near the end of her three-round fight against the New Zealand’s Agnes Tuitama and was induced into a coma by doctors to help relieve the swelling in her brain.In Perth, the boxer’s mother said her daughter’s career was almost certainly over. Felicity Bailey said: “I don’t think anyone would let her fight again after having brain damage. Her husband did say that that was the end of her career.”Bailey joined calls by Australia’s main medical body for blanket bans on boxing, in response to her daughter’s injury and the death earlier this month of the 29-year-old Gold Coast boxer Ahmad Popal from head injuries.On Monday, the Australian Medical Association said boxing was “little more than legalised manslaughter” and a ban should be imposed on female and male boxing, amateur and professional.. There are many in National Hunt racing who will look back on the 2000/2001 season as little more than a gap year, the campaign that never was. Heavy ground wiped out much of the winter, and turned the National into a two-horse race, while foot-and-mouth finished off Cheltenham, leaving blank spaces against the great championship races. There are many in National Hunt racing who will look back on the 2000/2001 season as little more than a gap year, the campaign that never was.

Heavy ground wiped out much of the winter, and turned the National into a two-horse race, while foot-and-mouth finished off Cheltenham, leaving blank spaces against the great championship races.
Not everyone takes quite such a negative view, however, and one trainer at least has refreshingly positive words to say about the last six months. “Depending on what happens this weekend,” Venetia Williams said yesterday, “we could end up having our best ever year, and that’s without having had the opportunity of the Cheltenham prizes to go for. There has been testing ground and heavy ground all season, but I’d much rather have those conditions than firm ground, because you end up injuring horses a lot more if you’ve got consistently fast ground.”Amid the gloom elsewhere, and the lingering feeling that those long months of Festival trials, anticipation and ante-post plunges were a waste of time, Williams’s attitude is a beacon of optimism. It also draws attention to a most impressive performance, for just a single win in one of Saturday’s big races at Sandown would take her past £700,000 in prize-money over a season for the first time.With so many valuable races lost for various reasons, this would be quite an achievement, and with a contender in each of the first three races at the Esher track, it is one she has every chance of accomplishing. Jocks Cross and Arctic Camper will contest the £125,000 Whitbread Gold Cup ­ Crocadee, another of her entries, is more likely to run in a novice chase the previous day ­ while Bellator lines up for the replacement Champion Chase, with £85,000 in prize-money.

By then the £700,000 mark may have already been breached by Montalcino in the Coral Eurobet Championship Hurdle.Montalcino is a novice with just two runs behind him, but the latest of those, in the Mersey Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree, was so impressive that he is no better than 11-2 to beat a field including Bilboa and Barton. A surprising turn of foot after the third-last, despite the desperate ground, was enough to see off his opponents by 21 lengths, with Brian Crowley, his jockey, motionless. As Montalcino was led in, both rider and trainer looked genuinely startled by the ease of his victory.”I don’t know how competitive the race ended up being,” Williams says, “but you could not help but be delighted with the ease with which he won, especially in the conditions. He’s a novice taking on some of the best older horses, and he’s only got two races under this belt, but until they’re beaten, hope springs eternal.”Saturday’s card marks the official end of the 2000/2001 season (although the next one starts just a few days later), and there will be loose ends to be tied up throughout the week. At Fairyhouse today, Commanche Court takes on Florida Pearl, Native Upmanship and Dorans Pride in the Powers Gold Label Tote Gold Cup.Yesterday, it was the turn of Ned Kelly to stake a claim to be the best two-mile novice of the season with victory in the Grade One Champion Novices’ Hurdle. Eddie O’Grady’s runner has now won seven of his eight outings, including all five of his races this season.The most valuable race on the card, the Grade One Irish Independent Chase over two miles, fell to Micko’s Dream, who is better known as a stayer but found enough speed to beat Ferbet Junior by 20 lengths.