A Pair Of Places

The ground turned out to be bottomless at Ffos Las yesterday afternoon, turning the days action into a real slog.  Our two runners in the maiden hurdle both performed creditably to finish second and third - Buddy Bolero was having his first outing over hurdles and should certainly be winning races in the future.  Bathwick Brave also appeared to handle the ground quite well and produced an encouraging effort to finish a running-on third - he is another who should be winning before too long.  We have one runner at Southwell this afternoon, Clever Dick, who makes his debut for the yard in the conditional jockeys' novices' hurdle and he will be partnered by Conor O'Farrell.

It doesn't look to be the most competitive card at Southwell this afternoon with three of the favourites forecast at odds-on.  Indeed, one is a 1/5 shot, while another is as short as 1/10!  The ground at Southwell is officially described as good (good/firm in places) - incredible when you consider that Ayr have had to abandon their meeting due to waterlogging.

*****

I am looking forward to an evening on the sofa in front of the television watching some cracking football action.  Chelsea take on Liverpool, while Arsenal play Manchester City in the Carling Cup matches.  The only problem is that not all of the big clubs take these matches seriously so you need to know what sort of team they are going to put out.  Personally, if I were having a bet I would consider Millwall to beat Doncaster at 4/5 and Southampton to beat Hull at 4/6.