6 Meetings On The Level

There are six meetings taking place this afternoon with the action all coming on the flat once again.  The meetings take place at Wolverhampton, Brighton, Musselburgh, Newmarket, Haydock and Chelmsford City.  I thought that Acker Bilk ran a bit of a funny race on the level at Haydock yesterday.  He had a good position until dropping away two furlongs out, before plugging on again close home.  It looks like he will get further and he will certainly appreciate a slower surface.  He can only improve on this first start for 135 days and I would imagine he will be going hurdling sooner rather than later.

I see that Frankie Dettori makes the long trip up to Haydock for just one ride at 6.15pm for guv'nor John Gosden.  It is aboard Beatboxer and I wonder if we can apply the 'one ride theory' to the Italian?  Looking at the betting for the flat trainers' championship, the bookmakers make it a three horse race between John Gosden, Aidan O'Brien and Sir Michael Stoute.  Gosden is as short as 4/6 and with a £216,000 lead, he looks worth a bet to me.  I am not convinced that the O'Brien horses are 100% at present and the maestro doesn't seem to be running as many over here.

I was in the yard yesterday armed with my camera and I thought I would take a few pictures around the place.  Working on the treadmill before first lot was Drama King, accompanied by Clare.  When I took the shot above I had to laugh as Drama King seemingly stuck his tongue out for the camera.  He is owned by Michael Poland who was celebrating his birthday yesterday.  Many happy returns Michael!

Talking of birthday's, it is owner/breeder Sue Mills' birthday today.  Sue comes to the marquee at the Cheltenham Festival with husband Nick every year.  I won't tell you her age, but she certainly doesn't look it.

We drove over to Wales yesterday and seemingly escaped the worst of the rain.  There were 11mm in just half an hour at Pond House yesterday morning, while it looked like they had some heavy downpours in Brighton...at least it will help the ground.  It was also Lady's Day at the track so it was packed out with glitz and glamour.  Brighton is becoming an 'in place' to be seen once again.

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I see the first day of the second test between England and India was washed out by the rain.  It's the first time the whole day has been washed out since England took on Pakistan in 2001.

I was listening to Harry Redknapp on the radio and to be fair 'Arry does talk a lot of sense from time to time.  He says that the Premier League is going to be between Manchester City and Liverpool while he thinks Manchester United will struggle to get into the top 4.  It is going to be hard for Jose Mourinho to stay at United and he is going to blame the Board for not spending any money on new players.  It was good listening to him.

Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas could be leaving the Sky team to join CCC World Tour with their sport director Piotr Wadecki waiting for a reply.

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I have just come back from a Middle Eastern shindig...it was a Lebanese-up!

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