Donny Dispersal

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with flat fixtures from Kempton, Redcar and Yarmouth, whilst there is a jumps card from Hexham.  Hexham's card has been transferred from Southwell after the temporary suspension of meetings at the track.  Unfortunately quality is a little thin on the ground, with the best race of the day a 1m3½f 0-100 handicap at Yarmouth and that has only attracted four runners!  Following the recent dry spell and climbing temperatures the ground is quite lively at all the turf tracks and Hexham have even had to water.  Kempton is on the slow side as ironically, the better the weather, the slower the sand rides.  There are no runners from the Pond House team today.

I am sure that plenty of trainers (David included) will be at the Doncaster sales today.  It is an intriguing affair, not least because of quality of horse on offer due to the dispersals of the powerful Trevor Hemmings and Gigginstown Stud strings.  Prices have remained quite strong at other sales despite the restrictions of social distancing.

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I see that Andy Murray has been granted a wildcard entry to the French Open which gets underway on 27th September.  Murray has not competed at the event (of which he was a former finalist) since 2017.  The world number 110 produced a good performance to get through a tricky first round in the US Open but suffered a heavy defeat in round two.  He continues to look a pale imitation of his former self and he looks set to struggle again.

I enjoyed the first of Channel 5's live coverage of the NFL's Monday night games.  Last night it was the Pittsburgh Steelers versus the New York Giants, but what a strange choice of game to put on a Monday night with the Steelers going 8-8 and the Giants winning only 4 of their 16 games last season.  Unsurprisingly Pittsburgh prevailed 26-16 under returning quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

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Which bear is the most condescending?  A pan-duh!

My wife asked me to stop singing 'Wonderwall' to her the other night.  I said maybe...

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