Boxing Day Blank

I do hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day?  What a shame but there is no racing on today as the last remaining hopes of seeing any action at Fontwell and Wolverhampton were wiped out when they were both abandoned this morning after inspections.  It was a very cold night across the country with temperatures still on at -7C at Pond House at 8.30am this morning!  It is a real sporting day however in the Barnes household.  I am very lucky in Brixham with the weather not quite as bad as everywhere else and my local golf course, Churston is having a Texas scarmble competition this morning and later on I shall be watching the football, Fulham versus West Ham.  It is such a shame that the King George has been abandoned as it is tradition in my household to be watching Kempton on Boxing Day.  They hope to run the re-arranged King George and the William Hill Christmas Hurdle in the card at the track tomorrow and what a days action that proposes to be, but once again we are in the lap of the gods as to whether any racing will actually take place.  They are inspecting the course at 2pm this afternoon so we shall know our fate later today.

The Welsh National meeting which was due to take place tomorrow has already been abandoned but has been re-scheduled for Saturday 8th January and it will still be shown on the BBC which is brilliant news.  It is good that tracks can run these important races on other days as it would be a shame to lose them altogether.  Lets just hope they do not clash as AP needs a Welsh National to complete the collection of all the Nationals and what and achievement that would be.  He might be Champion jockey and Sports Personality of the Year but when I spoke to AP on Christmas Eve, believe it or not he was at a Sleeping Beauty pantomime with his daughter Eve.  He has concerns that if they do not stage the King George on Kemptons Monday card it could clash with the Welsh National on January 8th 2011.  AP was obviously thinking that far ahead and working that out while Sleeping Beauty was waking up!

I wonder if everyone had the same sort of Christmas as me? We open all our pressies at midday, I had lots of pants and socks and thermal bobble hats which are all coming in very useful at the moment!  I also get books that I will never read and jumpers that I will never wear, i actually already have a whole drawer full of them!  I will give them to people who I don't like as presents a bit later down the line!  I have no chance of getting caught out as they won't wear them either!

Australia are all out in the cricket for 98, what a bowling performance!  England have now already passed the Aussies total in their 1st innings and it certainly kept the 90,000 crowd quiet!  England need to build up a big lead now and put the Australians under pressure and hopefully win the test!  I hope you all have a very enjoyable Boxing Day.