Eamon's Sandown Success

It was great to see Eamon An Cnoic back in the winners' enclosure with a decisive success at Sandown yesterday afternoon.  Our ten year old has been a tremendous servant down the years, winning some nice races and running some excellent races in defeat, including when placed in the Brown Adversary over fences at the Cheltenham Festival.  He certainly deserved to get his head in front once again and we are all especially pleased for the Angove Family who have been tremendously patient.  Fergus Gillard gave him a lovely ride, getting his fractions spot-on in the testing conditions and he never looked like getting caught in the straight.  It would be no surprise to see him turned out again quickly before the handicapper can have his say, especially as he would go unpenalised for this conditional jockeys' race.

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Kelso and Fakenham as well as a couple of all-weather flat fixtures from Lingfield and Southwell.  David has one runner this afternoon; Gericault Roque who contests the 3.12pm race, a 2m4f novices' hurdle at Fakenham.  There are only four runners but it looks to be a quality race.  Gericault Roque finished runner-up in a bumper on his first outing under rules, but bettered that when a winner from a 100-rated flat horse on his hurdling debut at Plumpton.  He looks for all the world like this step-up in trip will suit and he has decent claims under Tom Scudamore.  Captain Morgs looks to be the one beat.

I was sorry to see that Davy Russell has lost his race against time to be fit for the Cheltenham Festival next month.  Russell, who with 25 winners at the Festival is the most among active riders, fractured a couple of vertabrae in a fall in October.  Hopefully he will be back in time for Aintree should Tiger Roll bid for a third Grand National.

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Novak Djokovic had a relatively trouble-free passage to the final of the Australian Open tennis yesterday, winning his match in straight sets.  He will face the winner of the Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas match which takes place today.  Djokovic will be bidding for a record-extending ninth success in the tournament this weekend.

No sooner had I said that there had been few shocks in the Welsh Open snooker, the tournament gets blown wide apart.  The seemingly invincible Judd Trump lost yesterday along with other big names like John Higgins, Kyren Wilson and Mark Allen.  Ronnie O'Sullivan is looking to be in excellent nick however and it would appear that Mark Selby could be his only serious threat as they approach the quarter final stage.

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I couldn't find the oxo cubes anywhere in our local shop today. They must have been out of stock!

The nice part about living in a small town is when I don't know what I'm doing, someone else does.

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