No Runners Wednesday!

There are no runners for the stable today but there are two jumps meetings at Ludlow and Sedgefield and Jack Tudor travels to North to ride at Sedgefield.  There is an all-weather flat meeting at Kempton and in Ireland they have jumps action at Fairyhouse. Yesterday at Taunton Neon Moon was disappointing at Taunton.  Things looks pretty good for most of the race but he doesn’t seem to be seeing out his races as he should and he finished fifth in the end.  He has had wind surgery before but that was quite a long time ago so we will get him checked out again.

Yesterday entries closed for the Aintree Grand National and the Eider chase at Newcastle.  We made an entry for Placenet in the ‘big one’ and Sidi Ismael in the Eider.  94 entries were made in the Randox Grand National and Irish stables dominate with a record 61 entries out of the 94.  This equates to 65% of the entries and is an increase from a total of 54 last year.  The race has a new start time this year of 4pm,  moved from the 5.15pm of recent times after a safety review.  That is not the only change of course, with the maximum field size having been reduced from 40 down to 34 for the first time this year which will mean it will be harder to get into the race.  Last year’s winner, Corach Rambler features amongst the 94 entries which is an increase of 9 from this time twelve months ago.  Willie Mullins has 13 entered in the race, with Gordon Elliott a mere 26!! The weights for the race will be revealed in a ceremony in Liverpool in a fortnight’s time and the immediate favourite in the betting already is Corach Rambler.   Placenet is a seven year old, eight time winner in France including around Auteuil.  He has just had the one start for us at Cheltenham in November where he disappointed but he has had a wind operation since then, is in good form at home and will be back in action very soon. 

Yesterday was also a scratching stage for some of the big races at the Cheltenham Festival.  Races that close early, well in advance of race date have several stages and basically if you don’t take them out by 12 noon on the stage day you pay more money to stay in.  Bob Ollinger, Impaire Et Passe, Vauban and Vurdett Road were all taken out of the Champion hurdle.  Dinoblue was taken out of the Champion Chase, Jonbon out of the Ryanair, Ahoy Senor out of the stayers hurdle and Royal Pagaille and Stay Away Fay out of the Gold Cup.  Most of these are unsurprising with for example Jonbon heading to the Queen Mother Champion Chase but most notable was perhaps being Impaire Et Passe.  He has not shown the same level of form so far this season as last and connections feel they would like to step him up in trip to 2m4f and plan to head to Aintree in April.

David Noonan was in the yard riding out yesterday.  He was stood down following a fall at Sandown on Saturday where he bumped his head.  He is absolutely fine however and should be back in action at the weekend.

Last night in the football there were three matches of fourth round replays, Southampton had a comfortable victory against Watford 3-0. Leeds scored three goals in extra time to beat their opponent Plymouth Argyle 4-1 and Coventry City beat Sheffield Wednesday 4-1.   

Tonight there are two more FA Cup fourth round replays with Bristol City visiting Nottingham Forest at 7.45pm and Chelsea at home to Aston Villa at 8pm.  The winners of the first mention match will play Manchester United in the next round, I am kind of hoping it might be Forest as Bristol City are a very tricky team to play!

I saw a man standing on one leg at the ATM.

Confused, I asked him what he was doing…

He said, “just checking my balance!”

Have a good Wednesday!