Un Temps Returns

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Wincanton, Aintree and Kelso as well as flat cards from Doncaster and Chelmsford City.  David has two runners today as Un Temps Pour Tout makes his first start after a long absence in the 2m4f hurdle at Aintree at 2.10pm.  Our dual Cheltenham Festival and French Champion Hurdle hero has been off the track for 606 days so it will be great to see him in action once again.  He has won with plenty of cut in the ground but this is a competitive race and he is fully entitled to improve.  Over at Wincanton, Ramses de Teillee contests the Listed Badger Ales Trophy over 3m1f at Wincanton at 3.35pm.  He was a promising novice chaser last term with two wins at Chepstow on heavy ground.  David Noonan takes the ride and my biggest concern is if the heavy overnight rain has penetrated the ground enough for his liking.

I am sure Aintree officials are disappointed by the two runner turnout for the opening novices' chase.  It just goes to show that trainers do not want this sort of race...when will the BHA start to listen?  Meanwhile, at Naas they have fields of 22 runners, 18, 16, 14 and 14 - one of the races even has reserves in place!  It just goes to show that there is too much racing on these shores hence our smaller, less competitive fields.

The big race of the day is the November handicap from Doncaster.  This meeting used to mark the end of the flat season but that is no longer the case, with Ascot hosting Champions Day.  With this not counting towards the end of season turf stats or the all-weather stats, what do the last few weeks of the turf season count for?  Nothing as far as I can tell,most odd.  Anyway, I digress. The November handicap at 3.15pm is a 23 runner race where the bookies go 7/1 the field so it is a wide open contest.  With Charlie Appleby in such good form I think I will take a flyer on Wolf County at 11/1.

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There are some good football matches taking place and I will be backing Spurs to beat Crystal Palace at 20/23, West Ham at 27/20 to beat Huddersfield and Leicester at 32/100 to beat Burnley.

Apparently there is a big rugby match today between England and New Zealand at 3pm on Sky Sports.  New Zealand are long odds-on favourites and I might just have the other channel on.  I hate to see England lose at anything, even rugby!

England won their first cricket test match overseas in two years when they beat Sri Lanka.  Did England play well or are Sri Lanka just very poor?  I think it was probably a bit of both - let's hope they can keep the winning formula going.

There should be a good fight tonight between Oleksandr Usyk and Tony Bellew - it should be a real punch up.  The Ukranian holds four cruiserweight belts.  I can't see this one going the distance.

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I am not a competitive person.  I would be the first to admit it!  Have a great weekend...

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