Lingfield, Rasen Runners

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with just a single jumps card from Market Rasen supported by all-weather flat fixtures from Southwell, Lingfield and Kempton.  David has two runners today; Yaa Salaam at Market Rasen and Picture Painter at Lingfield.  Yaa Salaam (pictured above) was a multiple winner on the flat in Germany and he produced a most pleasing first start over hurdles behind a couple of very useful types (the second has won since) when a close third at Ffos Las.  With that run under his belt, he is expected to go very well under Tom Scudamore.  Meanwhile, Picture Painter contest the staying flat handicap at Lingfield at 3.35pm.  He has to carry top weight but did finish third from this mark at Wolverhampton on his penultimate start and Adam Kirby is a positive jockey booking.  He looks to have sound each-way claims.

How many people would have guessed what yesterday's Hereford winner Ratfacemcdougall was named after?  Well, he's named after a fishing fly...not a lot of people know that!

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I lived for some time in Holland during my table tennis days and darts was hardly ever played over there, but what a massive sport it is now.  Starting tonight they have back-to-back Premier League matches at the Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam and 15,000 people will be watching.  As I recall, it is a big stadium (I won the Dutch Open there - I won't tell you what year!) and the noisy home fans will be getting right behind Michael Van Gerwen and Raymond Van Barneveld.  I bet all the fancy dress shops in the vicinity will be sold out!

If Rory McIlroy wins the World Matchplay this week he will be back as the world number one.  He is in great form at present and hasn't finished out of the top six very often this year.  Let's hope that McIlroy and Tiger Woods win their opening matches as they would then face one another and that sounds like a tasty match.  I will be having a few little each way bets on Paul Casey at 25/1, Dustin Johnson at 11/1 and Tommy Fleetwood at 22/1 to give me an interest.

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Talking of golf - I was watching the ladies playing the other day...they couldn't drive for toffee, but they certainly knew how to use an iron!

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