Christmas Eve!

We have made it to Christmas Eve and Gerry Supple’s birthday!  No racing today but we have made the declarations for Boxing Day where we don’t have lots of runners but they are spread around four different meetings.  We have Stray Bullet running on the flat at Wolverhampton, Via Dante travelling to Market Rasen, two runners at Wincanton and three runners at Fontwell.  Duc De Beauchene and Kingofthewest both run at Wincanton and Jack Tudor heads to ride these and plenty of others as well.  Behind The Curtain, Makanao and Paricolor make up our trio of runners at Fontwell and Gearoid Harney goes there to ride all of these.  David Noonan rides Via Dante at Market Rasen and we are using promising young apprentice Jack Enright claiming seven pounds on board Stray Bullet.  Check back here on Boxing Day for more news ahead of the days runners.

As usual, there are no race meetings today in Britain and Ireland but if you need to get your racing fix there is action in France at Cagnes Sur Mer this afternoon.  Their card includes a couple of claimers at 12.40pm and 2.32pm if anyone fancy’s getting themselves an early Christmas present!

There are seven jumps meetings to look forward to on Boxing Day and for the first time ever as far as I know they race at Aintree on this date.  Sedgefield, Wetherby, Market Rasen, Fontwell, Wincanton and of course Kempton make up the meetings with the King George at Kempton being the big one.  This race is due off at 2.30pm and it is a small field this year with Gerri Colombe deciding to stay in Ireland and a late setback for Royal Pagaille.  It is still a very interesting race however with Allaho the favourite and Bravemansgame looking to defend his crown.  He has probably not quite been at his best in two starts this season but it would be no surprise to see him return to form in this.  If Shishkin is on his best behaviour and jumps off he cannot be discounted.  Frodon is probably not quite the horse of old but has a thoroughly likeable attitude and the two Irish contenders, Hewick and The Real Whacker have strong chances as well. 

Myself and Chelsea won’t be in the office on Christmas day but there will be plenty of people in outside looking after the horses.  Our staff choose to work either Christmas Day or New Year’s Day while a lot actually work both out of choice.  Tomorrow they come in early get the horses exercised and the jobs done before heading off to spend time with their families. David and Leanne have any of the staff who are away from home join them around their dinner table before it is all hands on deck in the afternoon to get everything done.  Everyone will then be in on Tuesday for another action packed day!

There is just the one Premier League football match today, with Wolves at home to Chelsea at 1pm.  There are then lots of games on Boxing Day and over the entire Christmas period for us all to look forward to.

What is Santa’s favourite kind of pizza?

One that is deep-pan, crisp and even!

What do you call a broke Santa Claus?