Stratford, Ffos Las Runners

There are six meetings taking place this afternoon with flat action coming from Ascot, Catterick and Wolverhamption while there are jumps fixtures from Stratford, Market Rasen and Ffos Las.  The stable runs two at the Welsh track; Epic Warrior and Lilbourne Legacy while Kie (pictured above) is our sole representative at Stratford.  Epic Warrior faces just five rivals in the three mile handicap hurdle which is something of a surprise considering that there is £15,000 up for grabs - he looks to have a decent chance in what is nonetheless a very competitive race.  Lilbourne Legacy faces an in-form runner in Dream Bolt who has won three of his last five starts.  David Noonan takes the ride aboard our runner and he claims a handy 7lbs off his back.  Over at Stratford Kie carries top-weight in the 2m4f handicap chase.  He produced a career best effort to win over the course last time but a 7lbs higher mark means that he will need to have improved again.

There is a great card at Ascot today as they host Champions' Day which marks the final day of the jockeys' and trainers championships.  The obvious highlight is the Group One Champions Stakes with over £1 million in prize money up for grabs and if Jack Hobbs is anywhere near as good as the Gosden team thinks he is, he should win.  There are four Group One races on the card, so you know what I will be doing this afternoon!  I see that leading jockey Joe Fanning has chosen to ride at Catterick so I can only imagine that he has some well-fancied rides for guv'nor Joe Fanning.

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Meanwhile over in Pakistan, the inevitable draw came a step closer following a great knock from England captain Alistair Cook.  Cook scored 263 runs in what is one of the longest innings of all time.  England are on 569-8 and my local bookmaker has already paid me out on the stalemate!

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There is an interesting football match at 12.45pm this afternoon as Liverpool play their first match under new manager Jurgen Klopp.  They take on Spurs and it will be interesting to see how his players respond to him.  There are a couple of other matches which are vitally important for the managers as well...Aston Villa travel to Chelsea and I would imagine that Tim Sherwood has been having sleepless nights.  Over at Sunderland, Big Sam Allardyce has his first match as manager and they travel to West Brom.  It should certainly be an informative weekend!

I will be having a crafty little treble on Chelsea at 4/11, Manchester City at 4/11 and Southampton at 4/5 - you heard it here first!

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Why did the toilet roll roll down the hill?  Because it wanted to get to the bottom!  Sorry, another bum joke to get your weekend underway!

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