Competitive!

There are three meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Leicester and Kelso as well as an all-weather flat card from Newcastle.  Although there are no runners from Pond House today both Tom Scudamore and David Noonan have picked up an outside ride at Leicester.  I think Tom has better prospects than Noonan, although I don't think I will be testing the 'one ride theory' on either on them today!

I was watching the racing from Warwick yesterday afternoon and I was most impressed by Hazel Hill, the winner of the hunter chase.  He may be an eleven year old now but he won with a ton in hand and in a time quicker than the handicap chase on the same card.  He looks likely to go onto better things.  I was quite amazed at how competitive these contests have become nowadays.  The outsider of the field was rated 117...no mug by any means, yet he was 100/1!

There is a fantastic picture in the Racing Post today of Mikey Sweeney's incredible point-to-point recovery.  He is hanging around Ask Heather's neck after a jolting mistake at the last, but somehow he managed to get back aboard and even more incredible, still managed to win the race.  You can see this amazing recovery on racingpost.com.

I love it when punters land a touch.  Well, Jokers And Rogues was backed into 3/1 from 11/2  at Sedgefield yesterday and duly jumped out to make all and never saw another rival, coasting home 15 lengths clear under a positive ride from one of our former jockeys, Conor O'Farrell.

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West Brom beat Bolton 2-0 last night so I have a few quid to play with today.  I think I will back Plymouth Argyle tonight against Walsall.  Plymouth seem to be improving and can be backed at 7/5.  Meanwhile, I see that Manchester City are unhappy with the way referees are judging Raheem Sterling about his inability to stay on his feet in the penalty area.  He should have had a penalty awarded against Huddersfield - it was a clear penalty but the ref didn't give it.  The trouble is, he dives so often that they no longer believe him, so it's his own doing as far as I am concerned.

Judd Trump absolutely thrashed Ronnie O'Sullivan to win the Masters 10-4 at the weekend.  To me it didn't look like Ronnie was that interested and he is definitely a law unto himself.  Maybe the forthcoming world championships will help to rekindle his enthusiasm?

I don't think I would want to upset German tennis player Alexander Zverev.  He was hammered 3-0 by Canadian Milos Raenie and smashed his racket nine times.  He certainly didn't seem to take it too well!

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Customer: Waiter, this egg is bad.
Waiter: Well don't blame me, I only laid the table!

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