Seventeen Runners Today!

It looks like being a bumper weekend for the yard with no fewer than seventeen runners across four meetings this afternoon.  It has been a fair while since we have had that many runners in a day and that includes the Cheltenham Festival!  The lorries will be leaving for all parts of the country with our runners - we are represented at Chepstow, Sandown, Aintree and Wetherby and will be keeping our fingers firmly crossed for a winner or two.  I am particularly looking forward to seeing Master Overseer slogging through the mud at Chepstow - he was a winner there last time out over hurdles and he stays longer than the mother-in-law!

I thought that Notus de la Tour ran a cracking race in defeat at Exeter in the novices' chase yesterday afternoon.  Our five year old lost nothing in defeat conceding 8lbs to two very useful horses in Walkon and Zaynar.  Remember, both of those rivals were rated superior to him over hurdles, so I think that at the weights it was a decent performance and he should be winning more races before too long.

I was absolutely gutted for poor old Shaking Hands who produced a valiant effort under a fine ride from Tom Scudamore in the four mile handicap chase.  Exeter is a stiff, galloping track and four miles around there on softish ground would have taken some getting - our seven year old led for all bar the last few yards only to be mugged by Drybrook Bedouin.  It was a really gutsy performance and he didn't deserve to lose - the only trouble is that the handicapper will probably put him up a bit for that effort and make his task even more difficult next time.

Close House also produce a sound effort when finishing third on his debut over timber in the National Hunt novices' hurdle - he would have finished considerably closer but for a bad mistake at the penultimate hurdle and is another that should be winning with that experience under his belt.

I thought that Philip Hobbs' Fingal Bay produced a good performance at Sandown yesterday - he is now unbeaten in four starts and it will certainly take a good one to lower his colours.

*****

I will be having a go at a little double on the footie this weekend with West Ham (who else?!) at 4/6 and Charlton at 7/10.

It was the draw for the European Cup last night and I don't quite understand why so many people were keen for us not to get current World Cup holders Spain in the same group...I mean, we could still qualify alongside Spain (even if we didn't beat them) and then wouldn't have to meet them until the Final (assuming we were to get that far, which admittedly is some wild assumption!).  Instead we are drawn in the same group as France, Sweden and the Ukraine, but by not getting Spain, we now risk bumping into them much earlier and as far as I can see, there will be only one outcome to that!