Glorious Goodwood Day One

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with flat cards from Goodwood, Beverley and Yarmouth while there are jumps fixtures from Perth and Worcester.  There are no runners from Pond House today although om Scudamore has picked up four outside rides at Worcester.  There is some cracking racing to look forward to as today marks the start of the 'Glorious Goodwood' fixture, while over in Ireland it is day two of the Galway Festival.  Aidan O'Brien has a runner in each of the three Group races at Goodwood this afternoon - they are all partnered by Ryan Moore yet none of them are forecast favourite, that must be some kind of record in itself!

Ruby Walsh won the first at the Galway Festival yesterday and that has to be good for the sport...and for my bet!

Many happy returns to Jimmy Frost who turns 60 today.  Jimmy rode quite a few for MCP but enjoyed his biggest successes aboard Morley Street in the Champion Hurdle and Little Polvier in the Grand National.  It is also former Cheltenham supremo Edward Gillespie's birthday today.  Edward was playing a game of ping pong with Martin (it's not table tennis when they play it!) the last time he visited Pond House.  Anyway, Edward fell over and broke his arm...I keep telling you, it's a rough old game with many concealed dangers!

I see that Lingfield drew a big crowd yesterday for their hastily arranged new meeting.  The reason is quite obvious - they were only charging a fiver for people to get in.  There were plenty of kids there and that is what we need for the future of the sport.  Perhaps some of the other courses should follow this lead?  If it were more affordable they would get bigger crowds (and would probably see the difference between the admission costs recouped behind the bar).

I have been busy with the camera again and managed to get this shot of promising youngster Duc de Beauchene with Julie Bellamy on board leading Ashley Farrnat and Midnight Magic back down the gallops.  Another beauty from the Barnes portfolio!

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The new football season hasn't even started yet but the bookmakers have already started taking bets on whether Jose Mourinho will see out the season at Manchester United.  Fans of United will be concerned to see that he is a 6/5 chance to last.  He does seem to be saying some strange things about the board so there is clearly some sort of problem there.

Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas received a phone call from Arsene Wenger.  The ex-Arsenal manager gave his seal of approval - the trouble is, a lot of Arsenal fans hoped that Wenger had been on his bike a long time ago!

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Thought for the day...if you ever buy a large screen television, don't forget to put the box in their bin rather than your own.  That way they get robbed rather than you!  Here to help...

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