No Jumps Day

September is a funny month for jumps racing and there is once again no jumps action today, but there are five flat meetings at Ayr, Yarmouth, Pontefract, Kempton and Chelmsford.  In Ireland they have a flat card at Naas, the stable does not have any runners.

This morning, I thought I would just have a quick catch up on some jockey news from the racing world.  Hollie Doyle has probably had a quieter year by her high standards than normal but it was announced yesterday that she is one of four top-class jockeys to be heading to Hong Kong to ride for a spell this winter.  Hollie is closing in on a century of winners for the year so it has not been a bad one but she has lacked the Group horses to keep her in the limelight as much as previously.  She will be heading East to ride at Sha Tin and Happy Valley between 5th November and 23rd December.  Richard Kingscote and David Probert are two jockeys who are already in Hong Kong.  Irish jockey Dylan Brown-McMonagle, who is currently leading the Irish jockeys championships in another set for a spell in Hong Kong he will head out there early in the New Year.  Australian jockey James McDonald and Frenchman Maxime Guyon are another two International riders to have been granted a licence to ride in Hong Kong this winter.  

Ballydoyle will have further jockey issues for the Newmarket Cambridgeshire meeting with Christophe Soumillion having picked up two separate bans recently which means he is unable for that meeting.  He picked up a two-day ban for an incident on Delacroix when he was coming out of the stalls and he had picked up a six day band at Doncaster earlier in the week for using his whip above the permitted level.  Thankfully for the Aidan O'Brien team, will welcome back Wayne Lordan from his suspension in time for this meeting.

Timmy Murphy's eldest son Lucas his set to follow in his father's footsteps as a jockey and already has an amateur licence having turned 16 earlier this year.  Lucas has had a couple of rides on the flat for Richard Hannon this summer but he will be continuing his studies and getting some experience point to pointing this winter.  While Timmy is more keen for his son to go down the flat route, the chances are he will be too heavy and Lucas himself is more keen on the jumping anyway.  He has had plenty of success pony racing and I shall be looking out for him point to pointing this season.  One person who will be hoping Lucas can rise to the top as a jumps jockey is his uncle Dominic who placed two £100 bets when Lucas was just 2 months old.  These were for him to ride a Grand National winner at 500-1 and to have a Cheltenham Festival success at 100-1 which could potentially net him a windfall of £60,000!

Liverpool left it late to win their opening Champions League match last night 3-2 against Atletico Madrid while Chelsea lost 3-1 away to Bayern Munich.  The action continues this evening with Manchester City at home to Napoli and Newcastle at home to Barcelona.

The England cricketers beat Ireland in the first of three Twenty 20 matches in Dublin yesterday while Great Britain won their first medal at the World Championships yesterday in Tokyo.  1500m runner Jake Whiteman won a silver medal but fellow Brit Jason Kerr, who was trying to defend his title, sadly got injured during the race.  GB's medal hopes Keely Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Ball start their campaigns today with the 800m heats and there is plenty of other action to watch live on the BBC.

What gets bigger when more is taken away?

Yesterdays Answer: David (David's parents have three sons, Snap, Crackle, and what is the name of the third son?)