Photo Farce!

There are four meetings this afternoon with three fixtures on the flat at Bath, Brighton and Hamilton as well as a jumps card at Stratford.  The stable has no runners today.

I cannot see how the judge Dave Smith managed to get the photo finish so badly wrong at Kempton last week.  He gave the result of the seven furlong two year old maiden as a dead heat, even though he deliberated for less than a minute.  You can see from the print that Extra Noble was the winner - maybe someone else should take a look at photo finishes?  Let's hope that the bookies pay out on the real result...I wouldn't hold my breath though as they will already claim to have paid out on two results (albeit split stakes with one result being the rank outsider!).  I wonder if the judge will get a ban like the jockeys do if they get something wrong?!

I see that Frankie Dettori has landed on his feet (must be all that practice doing flying dismounts!) by securing the job as retained rider to Sheikh Joaan - let's hope he can ride some high profile winners for his new boss...he has gone 49 rides without a winner now.  Racing needs characters like Frankie so it would be nice to see him end this barren spell - he helped Jamie Osborne saddle one up last night and not even that one could win!

*****

How unpredictable is Wimbledon this year?  Just when I was thinking that Serena Williams was home and hosed, she goes and loses to Sabine Lisicki.  How can the amazon Serena lose to a girl half her size?  Her conqueror is now the 3/1 favourite to land the title.  The problem is that many of the players outside of the top seeds are so inconsistent that they never play two matches the same.  Laura Robson also lost out - I see that the 'generous' bookies are making her a 3/1 chance to win a Grand Slam during her career...not very generous if you ask me!

*****

There is no way that Arsenal are going to sign Wayne Rooney.  First of all the Gunners will not spend that sort of money so long as Arsene Wenger is in charge, while secondly they will not fork out the sort of wages that Rooney commands.  The manager made his first signing last night as he signed French under 21 striker Yaya Sanogo on a free transfer...that just about sums up the Arsenal philosophy!