Tuesday Catch Up

There are two jumps meetings today at Newbury and Market Rasen but the stable does not have any runners.  There is just one flat all-weather fixture at Wolverhampton and no racing in Ireland today.  Jack Tudor goes to Market Rasen for two nice rides for Emma Lavelle and hopefully he may ride a winner.  The weather continues to play it's part in fixtures this week, Lingfield and Fairyhouse were both abandoned yesterday while Sandown's card on Thursday has already been called off.  There seems to be plenty of rain to come this week but fingers crossed it does not cause too many problems for the jumps meetings ahead.  

All the talk in recent days seems to be about Constitution Hill, the poor horse and the Henderson team seem to go from one drama to another!  He is one of quite a few entries in the 1m4f valuable novice event at Southwell on Friday, a race that has attracted lots of attention ever since he has been aiming to run there and there are plenty of entries for the race, as you would expect for such good prize money on offer at this time of year.  The ballot marks for the race came out on Sunday and he has a ballot of 16 which meant it would be very touch and go as to whether he would even get a run or not.  At Southwell, the maximum field size for a race is 14 horses, but this can be reduced to 12 if they exceed their stabling capacity for the the total number of horses declared to run in all the races.  This looks likely to be the case on Friday with lots of entries on the card with plenty of prize money up for grabs throughout.  The draw for balloting is done randomly but there are certain criteria depending on the race where horses get protection from balloting should they meet certain conditions and then it is just random.  For example, in a novice hurdle race, if you have won or been placed before in a novice event you are less likely to get a ballot mark than those that have ran and been unplaced before, depending on how many ballots are needed for a particular race.  The latest twist in the Constitution Hill saga is that the racecourse have now put in an additional two temporary stables to ensure the maximum field size for this race will be 14.  They did of course have to get approval from the BHA but it means that Constitution Hill has a greater chance of getting a run because of it!  He still needs a bit of luck with two horses not declaring but for everyone's sake I do hope he runs and then wins!  Then who knows, we may see him lining up in the Champion hurdle in three weeks time!

The Macclesfield FA Cup dream came to an end last night as they lost 1-0 at home to Brentford but it lives on for other teams who progressed to the Fifth round after wins over the weekend.  The draw has taken place for the next round and there are some all Premiership ties to name a couple, Wolves are at home to Liverpool and Newcastle play Manchester City.  Wrexham have a great tie at home to Chelsea.  Champions League knock out matches are back this evening but there are no British teams involved.

Over the weekend, England lost to Ireland in the Calcutta Cup at Murrayfield while Wales were outplayed by France in Cardiff and Ireland beat Italy in the Six Nations.

The England men's cricketers beat Italy in the T20 World Cup yesterday while Scotland and Ireland are in action today.

The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics are now the most successful ever for Great Britain as we have now won three gold medals with wins in the snowboarding and the mixed skeleton team event on Sunday.  I am enjoying watching as much as I can and particularly loved watching the figure skating last night where the Japanese pairing were magnificent and took the gold medal.  There is plenty more action today with a variety of events including the Nordic Combined, we used to have a horse called that!

Once upon a time, there lived a King who was only 12 inches tall.

He was a terrible King but he made a great ruler!

Have a good day!