Another Good Weekend

The stable runners continue in good form with our three runners all finishing in the first two.  Balgarry produced an amazing performance on his debut for the yard at Newbury after an absence of 577 days.  Under a positive ride from Conor O'Farrell, he unsurprisingly looked to be tiring a little close home, but had already put the race to bed long before that.  As this was only his third ever start, you would think that there maybe more improvement to come and he could be another interesting one for a Cheltenham handicap next week.

It was good to see Dan Breen bounce back to form in the valuable handicap chase, althou it was a shame that he was collared close home to be beaten a short head by favourite Aerial.  It looked like his stamina just ebbed away in the last 100 yards on this first try at 2m4f - I would imagine that he will probably run in the Grand Annual next week and he must have a chance if building on this effort.

Up at Doncaster, Junior was mugged on the line by Ikorodu Road.  Our runner was trying to concede no less than 22lbs to the winner and I thought that he ran a very good trial for the Grand National.  He looked to be beaten quite a long way out but he kept responding to Tom Scudamore's urgings and he looks for all the world as though the 4m4f trip at Aintree will be right up his street.

This afternoon Terfel's Toscar and Trop Fort (pictured right) represent the yard at Hereford.  Terfel's Toscar is making his debut for the stable after a long absence, but as David has shown on numerous occasions this season (not least Saturday) this does not need to be a problem.

*****

Today's Racing Post should be renamed Pipe's Post!  On the front cover there is a big splash advertising the "Grands Crus Story", sharing the headlines with Carvill's Hill, meanwhile inside accompanying these features is a piece about David's Grand National fancy Junior, not to mention a full page picture of him advertising his live Twitter chat at 7.30pm tonight!

*****

I have never seen such a one-sided football match as the one I saw yesterday when Manchester United defeated Spurs 3-1.  I am not quite sure what has happened to Spurs in recent weeks - they were thumped by Arsenal and now by United...obviously they still have a bit of work to do before they can be considered genuine challengers for the Premiership.