Ladbroke Trophy Day

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Newbury, Newcastle, Bangor and Doncaster, whilst there is an all-weather flat fixture from Wolverhampton.  The big race of the day is the Ladbroke Trophy from Newbury at 3.00pm, although even after all this time I still think of it as the Hennessy Gold Cup.  As usual, it is a highly competitive contest with 18 runners in the line-up and they go 7/1 the field.  If I were forced to pick one, I wouldn't be surprised to see Potterman go well at a decent price - he is due a hike in future handicaps and loves a sound surface.

Dell' Arca ran another solid race yesterday afternoon at Newbury.  He was 6lbs higher in the weights than for his last two victories and this was more competitive but he never stopped trying and stayed on for fifth in the closing stages.

There are no runners from the Pond House team this afternoon, although we will be back with a runner at Leicester tomorrow when Paricolor runs.

From Wednesday racecourses will be able to have spectators back on track and that has to be considered excellent news for all of them.  Of course, there are still restrictions in place and the courses that can have racegoers will be governed by the tiers they are on.  On Wednesday all four tracks (Lingfield, Ludlow, Haydock and Kempton) can host up to 2,000 visitors, whilst locally Wincanton and Exeter will also be able to have that number later next week.

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There are four Premiership matches taking place this afternoon with ironically the most competitive match looking to be between the two clubs at the bottom of the table; West Brom and Sheffield United.  Liverpool should be too good for Brighton, although their away record is nothing to shout home about, whilst Manchester City should beat Burnley.

The Formula One action comes from Bahrain this weekend and with both titles already sealed, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for the teams that are not called Mercedes this weekend?!  Even so, Lewis Hamilton was top in practice which is an ominous sign heading into qualifying.

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My grandad rode national hunt horses until he was run down by a steamroller.

Luckily for him, he went on to be a successful flat jockey

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