Big Day for Little Chief

Jack & Little Chiefy in action at Bangor Today

There is plenty of racing for us all to watch today with the flat card at Newbury taking centre stage and the feature Lockinge Stakes at 2.35pm.  This Group One is over a mile and Damysus is favourite for John and Thady Gosden and James Doyle.  It looks and open and competitive race, especially between the top four in the betting which includes Notable Speech for Godolphin and The Lion in Winter for Ballydolye.  There are plenty of runners on the entire Newbury card while the other flat racing today comes from Newmarket, Thirsk and Doncaster.  In Ireland they race on the flat at Navan and over jumps at Wexford.  There are two jumps meetings today in Britain at Bangor and Uttoxeter and while the stable doesn't have any runners as such, we do have a very important runner on the Bangor card!

Jack Pipe and Little Chiefy are taking part in their first racecourse series pony race at Bangor at 1.20pm.  This is the first pony racing of 2026 on the racecourse and all roads lead to a finals day at Aintree in October.  There are two races, a 138cm race first at 1pm and the 148cm race for the bigger ponies follows before the main racing action of the day.  Jack and Little Chiefy have learnt a lot from their pony racing ventures at the point to point fixtures this year and hopefully they can put it to good use this afternoon.  Things will be different again as this is the first time Jack will have experienced a flip start, opposed the flag which just gets dropped in point to points and this is the first time the ponies have different handicap weights, hopefully bringing everyone closer together for some competitive races.  Jack's pony, Little Chiefy starts his 'professional' career with a rating of A and means he carries 9st 9lb in the race.  First season ponies and ponies that have won a point to point pony race automatically get this grading and then it can/will adjust depending on how get gets on!  There is some stiff opposition this afternoon, especially from a horse who won the series final last year.  He has an A* rating and is ridden by a jockey with quite a lot of racecourse experience.   The race is over 1m2f which will suit and the main aim is to get a good start, do his best and enjoy it! There are ten runners and jockeys names include some familiar names you may recognise, there is a Johnson, Twiston-Davies, Moore and Longsden in the line up!  I will let you know how he gets on!

It is FA Cup Final day today and Chelsea play Manchester City at Wembley at 3pm.  Chelsea have not been in great form in the league in recent times but that goes out the window for a cup final but I am still siding towards City for the win and hopefully it is just a good game.

Somerset are on day two of their County cricket game at home to Sussex while Exeter Chiefs are away at Harlequins in Premiership rugby action at 4pm.  The US PGA Golf continues with day three.

I was gonna tell a railroad joke...

But I lost my train of thought!

Have a good day!