Rain Continues

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Fakenham and Uttoxeter and flat fixtures from Wolverhampton and Newcastle.  There are no runners from the stable today, although David Noonan heads off to Fakenham for just one ride.  It is no easy place to get to and he certainly won't be able to advertise his car for sale with low mileage on it anymore!  It has been a wet start to the day at Pond House with 5½mm precipitation, although that is nothing like the rainfall they have had Ffos Las where we could have runners tomorrow.  They had 30mm of rain overnight and the ground is certainly going to be very testing there.

It looks as though Ascot will be okay for their Champions Day meeting tomorrow.  They were waterlogged in places earlier this week but the course has drained sufficiently and there are sunny spells and showers forecast.  There are four Group 1's and a Group 2 on the card so let's hope that it goes ahead okay...it would be a bit of an anti-climax to the flat turf season if it were called off.  The prize money on offer looks more like lottery winnings.

I hope champion jump jockey Richard Johnson is okay.  He missed his last two intended mounts at Wincanton yesterday after a tumble from the well named Flying Tiger after just recording his 70th victory of the season.  Sebastapol looked to be a horse for the notebook after winning at the meeting and should be winning again before long.

It is Robert Liddell's 60th birthday today.  Many of you are probably asking who Robert is?  Well, so am I!  According to the Racing Post he is a punter like me...well, I hope he is a bit more successful than me!

The Caulfield Cup takes place early tomorrow morning in Australia at 7.15am.  The Group One contest is worth over £1.6 million and has attracted a couple of British runners, whilst Pat Cosgrave travels down under to ride Red Verdon.

Following on from David yesterday, the second installment of our horses to follow interview is with stable jockey Tom Scudamore.  Tom has been on the sidelines through injury but is back fit and healthy and ready to return to the saddle tomorrow (Saturday).  Click on the below image to watch it...

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Ronnie O'Sullivan has made an early departure from the English Open snooker tournament having lost 4-3 to Mel Xiwen.  He claimed the best thing about the K2 Centre in Crawley is "The M23 out of here."  I wonder why he enters the tournament if he hates the place so much?  There are plenty of other tournaments on the calendar these days and very few of the top professionals enter all of them.  I bet the folks at the K2 are happy that the Rocket has flown out of there.

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Thought for the day.  I would rather be an unsolved mystery than a foregone conclusion!  Have a great day...

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