Taunton, Newbury Runners

Today there are four meetings taking place with jumps cards from Newbury and Taunton as well as a couple of all-weather flat fixtures from Southwell and Chelmsford City.  David runs Junior Package, The Minkle and Navanman at Taunton while at Newbury he saddles Kalifourchon and Un Temps Pour Tout on the first day of Newbury's Hennessy meeting.  The one with the most obvious chance would appear to be French Champion Hurdle winner Un Temps Pour Tout as he makes his second start over fences.  It is a £19,000 race so obviously it is pretty competitive with some very nice prospects in opposition.  He was second at Cheltenham on his first start over fences and was the highest rated of these over timber and with a clear round he is very much the one to beat.

It is worrying to see that many of the biggest races are under threat from losing their sponsors owing to the new policy over funding.  Racing cannot afford to lose it's sponsors, especially for it's most high profile events.  My local football team needs 1,600 spectators just to break even, it is a shame that the racecourses do not publish their attendances...I am sure without the money they receive lots of the tracks would face closure.  Some of the so called bigger tracks even hold pop concerts to make money.  Racing is a long way down the list of popular spectator sports with the likes of darts and snooker even drawing in more viewers on television.  We must not lose our sponsors, even if they are the betting firms.

As any racing fans will know, Monday saw the premiere of the film "Being AP" which charted the final season of the champion jockey and David, Martin and Carol were in attendance in London for the viewing.  Martin says that it was a terrific insight into the dedication, toughness and fitness required to be a champion professional jockey and all the risks that are involved.  It is a must for every sportsman and especially punters who will realise the risks that every jockey takes every time they get aboard a horse and how we give them abuse when they back a loser and blame the rider.  If you missed the cinema screening, it will be out on DVD from Monday and would make a great Christmas gift for any racing enthusiast.  Anyway, below are a couple of pictures from Monday of Martin with John Francome and Carol and Angie with Chanelle McCoy at the Premiere...

*****

Manchester United drew at home with PSV and they must now beat Wolfsburg away to guarantee themselves a place in the knockout stages of the Champions League.  How many goals would the United team of ten years ago have put past PSV?

*****

I see the former boss of the world anti-doping agency says that athletics will never be completely clean.  He says that Russia have been running a state sponsored drugs programme for years so what chance do they have of cleaning up the sport?  It sounds like there are a lot of dopes in charge!

*****

There was traffic chaos when a lorry carrying 200 bee hives and two million bees overturned in Lincang, China.  Fortunately it was bee road!

Tweet