Tuesday Thoughts

We were due to have a runner at Market Rasen today, Neon Moon but that meeting was unfortunately called off yesterday with parts of the track being waterlogged.  That leaves just one jumps meeting today at Newcastle and the stable does not have any runners but Rian Corcoran is travelling North for one ride up there and he looks to have a good chance of riding a winner.  He rides the Nicky Richards trained Lady Walk On Bye in the mares bumper at 4.35pm.  I see she is second favourite in the betting but this trainer does very well with his bumper runners and the mare has a good pedigree so Rian looks to have a good chance of making it a worthwhile journey.

In Ireland there is a jumps meeting at Leopardstown and we have just one all-weather flat card at Wolverhampton this evening.  It seems mad to say it after Market Rasen is called off today and all the recent rain but the ground at Cheltenham is drying out!  A week today the Festival gets underway and the races take place on the old course where the ground is currently soft.  The last two days of the meeting are on the new course and that ground is described as good to soft at the moment.  With a relatively dry week ahead, they haven't mentioned about watering yet but the might have to believe it or not!  The only thing in the back of their minds must be that it does look a changeable forecast for next week with some rain in the forecast, it is not an easy job being clerk of the course, especially at such a big meeting as this.  We have just had a very wet February here at Pond House, more than double the rain of twelve months ago and so while things might dry out a bit, the ground has to be in a better starting position than last year and while the top layers dry out, there will still be plenty of moisture underneath.  We had some lovely warm sunshine yesterday which does make you feel good but we wouldn't mind it to keep raining for the next week in all honesty but what will be will be!

I was reading this morning that former top flat jockey, turned trained Darryll Holland is leaving Britain and is going to be training in Mauritius.  It sounds lovely training on a tropical Island and I had no idea it was quite such a big thing over there.  Their Turf Club licences 12 trainers and no trainer can have more than 30 horses.  They have 27 race meetings during the year at the Champ Des Mars racecourse in Port Louis which gets underway at the end of April.  Darryll rode out there as a jockey and built up contacts.  He has put his Newmarket yard on the market and is looking forward to his new adventure.  

There are four Premiership football matches this evening, three kicking off at 7.30pm, Bournemouth v Brentford, Everton v Burnley and Leeds v Sunderland.  Wolves are at home to Liverpool at 8.15pm and it could be a tricky match for the away team with Wolves in good form at the moment.

My husband and I share the same sense of humour.

We have to...he doesn't have one!

Have a good day!