Four More Places

Today there are only two meetings taking place with Lingfield having to abandon their jumps fixture after temperatures dropped to -6ºc overnight.  That leaves us with a jumps fixture from Newcastle and an all-weather flat card from Wolverhampton.  There are no runners from the stable today and it looks as though Tom Scudamore and David Noonan will be taking the day off now that Lingfield is cancelled.

We have had a somewhat exasperating run of places of late and that continued again yesterday with all four runners doing well without getting their heads in front.  Extra Mag and Martabot both finished second, Mrs Miggins third and Three Star General fourth.  Extra Mag may just have bumped into a very good horse at Kempton when failing by 3 lengths to give 7lbs to Precious Cargo.  Martabot finished second, trying to concede 21lbs to the winner of his race.  He travelled well throughout but didn't find as much as expected off the bridle - there has to be a race in him based on this evidence.  The winner should also be followed - Urtheonethatiwant was only rated 81 and should certainly be winning more races.

Over at Ludlow Mrs Miggins finished third, rewarding each-way punters at 20/1 and she looks like a staying chaser in the making to me.  Three Star General was fourth in the amateur riders' hurdle under Fergus Gillard, staying on again in the closing stages after getting outpaced.

I see that Richard Dunwoody has said that he was wrong to criticise Barry Geraghty on television years ago for his riding style (especially as Geraghty claimed that he modeled himself on Dunwoody!) after Barry moved ahead of him into fourth place on the all-time winners list.

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There are plenty of Premier League matches to look forward to tonight although the good teams look too short to back.  Arsenal at 1/4, Manchester United at 2/7 and Manchester City at 2/9 should all win comfortably although the treble still doesn't pay very much.

Golfer Bryson Dechambeau say that the new golf rule that you can putt with the flag left in has helped him putt much better.  He leaves it in for anything over ten feet and has just won the Dubai Desert Classic by a seven shot margin so he is clearly doing something right.

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Why did the golfer wear two pairs of pants?  In case he gets a hole in one!  Keep smiling...

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