Back From The Sales

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with flat fixtures from Goodwood, Haydock, Bath and Pontefract and a jumps card from Worcester.  There are no runners from Pond House today, although I notice that stable jockey Tom Scudamore heads to Worcester for a couple of outside rides.  The ground at Bath is officially being described as firm so I can see there being a few non-runners there.

There was a food festival at Goodwood yesterday and jockeys Jason Watson and Hollie Doyle took part in an omelette challenge.  Watson won as Hollie's omelette was overcooked...I don't think either one of them tried their creations as they were riding on the card.  I don't think either of them will be appearing on Celebrity Masterchef any time soon either!

I see there was an unusual winner at Bredwardine point-to-point last weekend when Patrick Sankey rode his first winner.  Nothing unusual in that I hear you say (and you would be right)...except the jockey in question is 6 foot 7 inches tall.  He was supposed to claim 5lbs but unsurprisingly put up 10lbs overweight.  You would have thought he might retire after that success, but no, he was up at Doncaster this week looking for another point-to-pointer.  I would have thought most of the horses would have ducked down when Patrick went near them!

Promising hurdler Interconnected made a cool £620,000 yesterday as a part of the Grech & Parkin dispersal.  His form with Emitom (who was conceding 10lbs) at Newbury last season is very good, but is it that good?  He was picked up by Darren Yates and will go to Phil Kirby.  You will recall that he spent £300,000 on ten year old chaser Blaklion to run in the Grand National and then another £170,000 for Don Poli when Blaklion was unable to run.  He is certainly going to be under the microscope so good luck to them.

Talking of the sales, David was busy buying at Doncaster over the last couple of days and he has a few nice sorts that are looking for owners.  They look good value too and with the team in such good form it could prove an ideal time to get involved.  Full details will be appearing on the website shortly, so if you would like to learn more about what is available please do get in touch.

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Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is ready to return to football management.  I wonder what club has taken his fancy?  I can't imagine that it will be a small team.  Meanwhile, I see that Manchester City are interested in Leicester's Harry Maguire.  Leicester want £90 million for him so it looks as though Pep Guardiola is going to have to offload a few players...having said that, City are backed by a group of very rich people from Abu Dhabi so perhaps they won't have to lose too many.

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A bit of advice...never read a pop-up book about giraffes!  Keep smiling...

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