Four Runners At Exeter

This afternoon we have four meetings taking place, three over the sticks at Bangor, Exeter and Ayr as well as a flat card on the all-weather from Kempton.  The stable has four runners at our local track; Too Generous, Virtuel d'Oudon (pictured above), Serienschock and Lady Of Longstone.  There has been lots more overnight rain and the ground at Exeter is already being described as heavy with some standing water - that makes it sound as though it is almost unraceable, although incredibly as I write this, there is no inspection of the track planned.  Too Generous and Serienschock should certainly handle the prevailing conditions - Too Generous is twice a winner on heavy ground, while Serienschock won four times in gruelling conditions in France.  Tom Scudamore is aboard all four of our runners today.

 I thought that Softsong ran a solid first race for the stable yesterday at Huntingdon.  He finished fourth behind easy winner Volnay de Thaix which is a step forward on his previous efforts and I would have thought he was entitled to improve yet further.  A drop back in trip didn't look as though it would inconvenience either.

I always enjoy watching these jockeys plying their trade under different codes and yesterday it was a chance for the flat jockeys to have a spin over hurdles at Lingfield.  Four of the five jockeys (or should I say horses?) managed to negotiate the course!  I remember years ago Martin gave Frankie Dettori the leg-up on a horses called Gold Medal in a similar race at Chepstow - I don't think Frankie opened his eyes the whole way around, it was a good job that his mount was a good jumper.  Funny enough, Frankie never rode over jumps again after that!

Looking through the entries, I am not sure that I would be wanting to foot Irish trainer Gordon Elliot's transport bill...he has runners this week at Balbriggan and Sedgefield and next week it looks as though he is going to ship some more raiders across to Ayr and Taunton!

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I see that former Everton and beleaguered Manchester United boss David Moyes has signed an 18 month contract with Real Sociedad.  Apparently he will get a £4.5million bonus if he completes his contract - call me cynic, but I am willing to bet fairly short odds that they get rid of him before paying that sort of sum...it's a cruel world!  Their is already a betting market in place - 4/6 that he will not be in charge and 11/10 that he is - the only trouble is, you could have a fair wait before you are paid out.

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Kevin Pietersen is writing another book, or should I say that someone is ghosting another book for him.  Apparently this one is actually going to have some cricket in it - you may recall that he was involved in the sport for a short while!

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A fugitive who was sentenced to life in prison for fraud has been caught after posing as a monk for eight years in Karyes, Greece.  I always thought they had some funny abbots out there!  Where do I get them from?!  They are all true...