National Runners En Route

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Ayr and Fontwell supported by flat fixtures from Newbury and Kempton.  There are no runners from Pond House today, although our Scottish National runners (the Ascot veteran's one-two) Rathlin Rose and Van Gogh du Granite left the yard this morning ahead of their long journey to Ayr.  Meanwhile, stable jockey Tom Scudamore has picked up some outside rides at Fontwell.

Our runner yesterday, Buster Edwards ran okay to finish fourth at Wetherby.  He looked as though he was going to be well beaten but stuck to his task well in the last couple of furlongs to finish beaten less than ten lengths.  I thought this looked like a decent little race and Buster should be capable of winning races (possibly over a little further) based on this evidence.

What a turn-out for students day at Limerick.  All 7,500 tickets were snapped up in minutes.  Many of them won't remember the occasion at all as the drinks flowed steadily throughout the day, but hopefully those that do remember it might think to come racing again.  It is a race occurrence to see the 'sold out' sign at a race meeting.  Perhaps they should try something similar over here?

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The big football match tonight is between Leicester and Newcastle.  Newcastle badly need to win to avoid going down although Leicester look the better bet at 8/11.  Arsenal and Chelsea both won last night.

It is hard to believe that Jack Nicklaus had to have armed police stay with him after receiving death threats.  One cop even offered to leave him him gun.  What on earth is going on with the world?

Brooks Koepka and Bryson Dechambeau share the lead on 6 under par after the opening round of the Masters.  England's Ian Poulter is joint 44th after a round of -4.

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Mrs Barnes is so lazy that our smoke alarm has a snooze button!  Keep smiling...

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