Welsh & Irish Runners

There are five meetings on these shores again this afternoon with flat cards from Redcar and Lingfield as well as jumps action from Sedgefield, Towcester and Ffos Las.  The stable is represented by Decoy and Vif Argent at Ffos Las - Vif Argent was a winner from this mark over fences and now reverts to hurdling in the hands of French amateur jockey Thomas Viel.  Over in Ireland the Punchestown Festival continues and we have another couple of runners at the meeting;Tullyesker Hill (pictured above) and recent Market Rasen winner Western Diva.  Western Diva showed improved form to overturn a long odds-on chance that day and could run a decent race under Tom Scudamore.

With three jumps cards taking place in the UK and A P McCoy in action at Punchestown, there will be a new leader in the jump jockeys' championship, mind you any lead will likely be short-lived!

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I was looking forward to watching the football between Chelsea and Atletico Madrid last night, although it was a bit of a disappointing match.  Chelsea have done well this season without a proper striker and much like Manchester United, they look to be an ageing squad.  They will need to spend big in the Summer to remain competitive.  Real Madrid look to be different class to both of these teams and you can still get a bit of 8/13 about them winning the title.

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Can you name the sport where if you get beaten in the first round you pick up £27,000?  Well, it's the tennis at Wimbledon...personally I think this is a ludicrous sum of money for not actually beating anyone!

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It looks as though Ronnie O'Sullivan is well on his way to winning another Snooker World Championship.  He looked to be totally different class to former world champion Shaun Murphy - he had so much in hand that if he was a racehorse, the handicapper would be sticking him up by a couple of stone!  I am not sure how anyone is going to be able to beat him if he shows anything like his best form, not only is he a great potter, he is a great safety player these days too.

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