Atiyah Takes Toll

It has certainly been a wet and windy weekend with 19mm of rain falling at Pond House in the wake of Storm Atiyah.  Even though the worst of the high winds are supposedly over with, there are plenty of branches down and debris on the roads so if you are driving be extra careful.

There are three meetings taking place this afternoon with a jumps card from Musselburgh supported by two all-weather flat fixtures from Lingfield and Newcastle.  With a dearth of jumps racing this way it is unsurprising that there are no runners from the Pond House team today, whilst jockeys Tom Scudamore and David Noonan have no booked rides this afternoon.  

There were no winners for the team on Saturday, with Remastered proving best of our runners when a narrow runner-up in the 2m7½f handicap hurdle at Chepstow.  This was his first try at the trip but he saw it out well under Nick Scholfield despite top weight of 12-0, conceding 9lbs to the winner.  This certainly opens up more options for him and he looks like a winner waiting to happen.

Vieux Lion Rouge managed to complete the National course again when ninth in the Becher Chase.  He ran well for a long way before weakening in the closing stages.  He safely negotiated another 21 fences meaning that he has now jumped 202 of them without incident...quite an amazing feat.

What a mess at Sandown on Saturday.  The London National was deemed to be a void race after yellow flags were waved on Saturday to notify jockeys of veterinary assistants tending to a stricken horse on the track.  The flags mean that the riders should stop immediately so unsurprisingly, the seven jockeys who failed to take heed of the flags have been subsequently banned and the race voided.  The BHA have come under fire for not declaring the race void immediately, instead choosing to conduct a lengthy stewards' inquiry first.  There will be plenty of punters (especially on track) who will have thrown away their tickets with no way of proving they ever struck a wager.  For those jockeys that did not stop, their bans will include Boxing Day so it could prove to be a very costly mistake for them.

*****

Following Manchester City's defeat at the weekend, I see that Betfred have decided to pay out on Liverpool winning the Premier League.  With the end of the season not until the middle of May this seems like a very bold gesture.  Amazingly they are not even the first firm to pay out, with Betway having already done so!

Anthony Joshua regained his heavyweight boxing titles on Saturday night by beating reigning champion Andy Ruiz on points in Saudi Arabia.  Joshua fought a much more measured fight than on the first occasion and always looked to be in control.

Ding Junhui won a third UK snooker championship, ten years after his last by beating Stephen Maguire 10-6 in a final which featured seven century breaks.  In the process he pocketed a handsome cheque of £200,000 - a record for the event and not bad for two weeks' work.

*****

What goes 'Oh oh oh'?  Santa walking backwards!  I think I may have gone a bit early with the Christmas jokes...I'm running out!  Can you tell?

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