Sexy Newton Runner

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with flat cards from York, Salisbury and Wolverhampton, whilst there is a jumps fixture from Newton Abbot.  David has one runner today as Sexy Lot (pictured above) contests the 2m1f novices' hurdle at 4.20pm.  She had some decent form on the level in Germany and acquitted herself nicely on her hurdling debut at Exeter last season.  That was on heavy ground but there is no reason why she should not handle this less testing surface and she looks to have solid each-way claims under David Noonan.

There is an excellent card to look forward to at York this afternoon with the Group One Nunthorpe Stakes supported by a couple of Group 2 contests.  Outstanding sprinter Battaash is the odds-on favourite for the feature but this may prove more competitive than it first appears with a couple of rapidly improving three year old's in the line-up.

1,000 Guineas and Oaks heroine Love put up another scintillating performance to land the Group One Yorkshire Oaks yesterday.  Whilst not as impressive as at Epsom, this performance was commanding enough to see her promoted to favouritism for the Arc.  It Longchamp race at the beginning of October should be a real thriller with Enable set to oppose for the first time.  Much as I admire Enable, this could prove to be a step too far trying to concede 7lbs to Love.

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All ten Formula One teams have agreed and signed the new 'Concorde Agreement' which sees them locked into the sport until 2025 at least.  The agreement is designed to bring an end to the disparity in revenue between the teams which currently sees the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull receiving a disproportionately large share of the commercial rights money.  Anything which narrows the gap between the teams in terms of revenue and performance has to be considered a good thing.

*****

Jack strode into ‘John’s Stable’ looking to buy a horse. “Listen here” said John, “I’ve got just the horse your looking for, the only thing is, he was trained by an interesting fellow. He doesn’t go and stop the usual way.

The way to get him to stop is to scream "heyhey" and the way to get him to go is to scream "Thank God".  Jim nodded his head, “fine with me, can I take him for a test run?”

Jim was having the time of his life 'this horse sure could run' he thought to himself. Jim was speeding down the dirt road when he suddenly saw a cliff up ahead.  “Stop!” screamed Jim, but the horse kept on going. No matter how much he tried he could not remember the words to get it to stop. “Yoyo” screamed Jim but the horse just kept on speeding ahead. It was 5 feet from the cliff when Jim suddenly remembered. “Heyhey!” he screamed. The horse skidded to a halt just 1 inch from the cliff. Jim could not believe his good fortune, he looked up to the sky, raised his hands in the air, breathed a deep sigh of relief and said with conviction “Thank God.”