Scottish National Day

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Ayr and Bangor and flat fixtures from Newbury, Thirsk and Wolverhampton.  The big race of the day is undoubtedly the Scottish Grand National at Ayr at 3.35pm and David is doubly represented with Rathlin Rose (Tom Scudamore) and Van Gogh du Granite (David Noonan).  They filled the first two places in a veteran's chase at Ascot last time out but this 28 runner handicap over four miles is going to be a different kettle of fish altogether and both of our runners have to prove that they will stay this marathon trip.  They can be given place claims at fancy prices if they do.  Meanwhile, over at Bangor David runs Malangen in the 2m3½f handicap hurdle at 3.55pm.  He won a seller last time out at Exeter and has been put in as joint favourite by the post for this 0-100 event - a big run is expected under Nick Scholfield.

A quick story about the Scottish National (sorry if you have heard it before)...I went down to the start one year with Alastair Lidderdale who was an assistant at Pond House at the time.  Our job was to make sure that our runner in the big race got away on terms (back then you were allowed to wave your arms!).  Anyway, as you can probably guess the horse whipped around and lost a good 50 yards at the start before he finally consented to go in the right direction.  Alastair started running back towards the paddock to see the boss so I told him to walk slowly as we were going to be in for a real bollocking.  Whilst we were meandering back towards the stands our horse was making stealthy progress through the field to lead after the last and get up to win in a driving finish.  At that point I told Alastair to start running!  It was an incredible ride from jockey Mark Perrett - the horse (and what a horse he was) was Run For Free...I certainly owed him a carrot!

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Tiger Woods shot a great round of 68 in the Masters to put himself right in contention.  Mind you, he had a nasty moment when a security guard slipped over a clipped his ankle.  I would love to see Woods roll back the years and win it but can he hold it all together for another two rounds?

Today I will be having a little wager on Burnley at 10/11, Southampton at 8/5 and Middlesbrough at evens.  My beloved West Ham should probably be torn apart by Manchester United and even worse, the humiliation will be shown on BT Sport at 5.30pm...I hope my television breaks down!

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For lent this year I decided to give up sexual innuendos...but it's so hard!  Have a great weekend...

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