Congratulations Mark!

These flat trainers don't half put out a few runners these days...during the last fortnight northern trainer has sent out 141 runners, while Mark Johnston has sent out 99.  Speaking of which, congratulations to Mark Johnston who on Tuesday surpassed Martin's tally of British trained winners, a treble moving him onto 4185, two ahead of MCP.  Mark may train under a different code, but it is still a tremendous achievement and it is only a matter of time before he becomes the winningmost trainer as he nears Richard Hannon's total of 4193.  Very well done to him and the whole Kingsley House team.

It is day three of our summer sabbatical and there are five flat meetings taking place this afternoon from Haydock, Brighton, Yarmouth, Sandown and Newcastle.  Yarmouth get the wooden spoon today with just £50,000 in prize money on offer across their seven race fixture.  Mind you, if they have many more fires like the one yesterday, just off the edge of the track, they won't have any prize money to give away at all.  It did look pretty bad with plenty of black smoke drifting across the track. 

David has one runner on the level today as Acker Bilk (pictured above, nearside) makes his first start for the stable in the 4.40pm race, a 1m3½f handicap at Haydock.  Our charge has won twice on the flat, albeit on the all-weather and he goes nicely at home so a big run is expected under David Probert.

Talking of flat racing, I see that James Doyle made the long trip all the way up to Pontefract yesterday for just one ride aboard an odds-on favourite.  It finished well beaten and James then had to drive all the way back to compete on the all-weather at Kempton - that sounds like a long day for him and I'm not sure he would have made enough money to cover his transportation costs.  Being a jockey can be a hard life, even for some of the top boys.

Patrick Millman rode a winner at Pontefract yesterday - he is the son of Rod Millman, one of our earlier jockeys from when Martin was training.  He is obviously following in his father's footsteps although he would appear to have more sense as he is a flat jockey!

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What would you do if you checked your bank balance and there was an additional £120,000 in there?  It happened to American teaching pro golfer Tommy Fleetwood who received the money instead of the real pro golfer, Tommy Fleetwood's Open prize money.  It has since been reallocated so maybe he can now afford a haircut?!

There is plenty of sporting action to look forward to with the golf starting today at 12.50pm while the second cricket test against India starts at 11am.  Surely India have got to bat a bit better and they are available at 2/1.

There are going to be a few transfer deals done today with the window closing at 5am.

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Ian Botham has got a brother...I don't just like Ian, I like Botham!

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