New Week

The new week starts with just one jumps meeting up at Kelso and the stable does not have any runners.  The eight race card gets underway at 2.00pm and I shall keep an eye on the hunter chase up there at 5pm.  The favourite is a horse called Boley Bob and he is a very short price to win this afternoon.  He is trained by J J O'Shea and is ridden by Henry Crowe, the combination having won both the Cheltenham and Aintree Foxhunters this year with the very good Barton Snow.  The trainer says this one is better than that one so I am just intrigues because this one must be very good and will win today! The six year old is two from four in Irish point to points and four from five in British point to points and makes his hunter chase debut this afternoon.  He is not a horse I have come across personally in my point to point exploits this season but he looks to have been progressing up the ranks and his trainer certainly knows what he is doing!  This horse is by the same sire as Barton Snow, Snow Sky and he came from the same connections in Ireland, I imagine bought privately from them.  I shall be watching with interest.

There are three flat meetings today, two on the all-weather at Lingfield and Newcastle and one on the turf at Redcar.  In Ireland they race over the jumps at Tramore.

I did not get to watch much of the racing action over the weekend so cannot really comment on that but Jack Pipe did very well in his pony race at Flete on Saturday to finish second.  It was the first time he has really got to ride a proper race, with it being over 1m2f, the pony was not flat out from the very beginning so he was able to get a nice position and he travelled well throughout.  There is one sharp bend on this quirky course and we did talk about how best to negotiate it before hand but it did not quite work out in the race!  He did go very wide and lost valuable ground which probably cost him victory in the end.  Chloe Fox-Pitt cornered much better on the very good pony She's a Corker and effectively this is what won her the race.  She stole a valuable few lengths and while Jack was closing on her close to the line, the line came to soon!  He struggled to pull Little Chiefy up once they had crossed the line so he will like 1m4f even better but it was a good ride from Jack and he learnt a lot again from the experience.  The plan is the head back there in two weeks time and I would hope if he gets his cornering right he will be very hard to beat!

I did watch most of the Manchester City v Arsenal match yesterday and there was a vital victory for Man City who are now just three points behind the Gunners with a game in hand so it is going to be a very tight run in the last few remaining games in the race for the title.  I actually thought Arsenal played well but at the end of the day they left the Emirates without a point which could prove costly.  Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, Nottingham Forrest got a nice win over Burnley and things do look bleak for Spurs who drew 2-2 with Brighton on Saturday.  There is one Premiership games this evening, Crystal Palace are at home to West Ham at 8pm.  West Ham really need three points to pull a little clear of Spurs at the bottom of the table.

Matt Fitzpatrick won the golf at Harbour Town last night, beating World Number 1 Scottie Scheffler in a play off hole.  The Somerset cricketers are in a good position to hopefully win their match against Hampshire today.  They need 148 runs with seven wickets remaining for victory so fingers crossed they can do it.

 I've just had a stack of toilet paper rolls fall on me in the supermarket...

I'm okay though, just soft tissue damage.

Happy Monday!