Break from the Rain

It is a welcome drier start to the day here at Pond House and I was even scraping ice off my card windscreen!  Just 4.5mm of rain in the past 24 hours but surrounding areas have been hit quite badly by flooding but we have been pretty lucky.  It looks set to me dry for us today but rain returns tomorrow and by the look of it, quite a lot so we will have to prepare for the next deluge.  It is a quiet day on the racing front today with no jumps racing with Exeter called off on Monday and Leicester failing an inspection yesterday morning.  We are left with just one all-weather fixture today at Kempton and one in Ireland at Dundalk.  No runners for us today or tomorrow but hopefully we may be back in action on Friday.

Prospects don't look that hopeful for Wincanton going ahead tomorrow with the track described as unraceable yesterday morning and they are inspecting there is afternoon.  With the big Dublin Racing Festival coming up this weekend I saw photos of Leopardstown racecourse yesterday and that to was under water.  There was lots of speculation online about racing being able to go ahead but last night the course posted further photos with the water gone and highlighting the great effort by everyone to pump the water off the track and it did look remarkably good all things considered.  Hopefully they will miss the worst of the weather in the coming days and racing will go ahead although I imagine conditions will be very testing.

I was reading the Henrietta Knight unfortunately suffered a theft at her yard.  Thieves stole fencing, stripped from a field by her yard during the night, leaving no trace of footprints or tyre marks in the process.  They took the posts, rails, tape and energizers in the pouring rain and she was just thankful there were no horses in the field they took it from.  It is quite remarkable what some people will do and steal these days.  

It is a big night in the Champions League this evening as all teams are in action in the last group matches of this competition.  The top eight teams will automatically qualify for a place in the last 16 while teams filling positions nine to 24 after tonight's games will have to take part in play-off match to get through to the next round.  Arsenal and Bayern Munich are just the two teams already qualified and don't have to worry this evening while six Premiership teams currently fill the next six spots.  Manchester City are the only British team not to be in a current qualifying spot and are in eleventh place but eight teams are tied on 13 points so there is all to play for to secure an automatic spot in the last 16.  All matches kick off at 8pm this evening and if you like football then it should be an interesting night ahead.

Novak Djokovic is through to the the men's semi-final of the Australian Open but he is a shade fortunate to be there.  He was two sets down to Italian Lorenzo Musetti but he had to retire through injury which meant Djokovic was through.  Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev are the other players currently through while Jannik Sinner plays American Ben Shelton this morning for the final spot in the last four.

If you ever get locked out of your house, talk to your lock calmly.

Because communication is key.

Have a good day!