Penultimate Day

                     Ashkazar

David has runners at Chepstow and Plumpton this evening on the penultimate day of the National Hunt Season.  However, Chepstow are holding an 11.30am inspection to see if racing can go ahead after 10mm of rain overnight and this morning have left some parts of the track vulnerable to waterlogging.  Ashkazar and Decoy run in the 7.00pm handicap hurdle and Barton stacey runs in the last race, a maiden hurdle.  It is interesting that Ashkazar goes back over hurdles as remember he was a very impressive winner over fences last time at Cheltenham.  He has a lot of weight to concede to other runners in the race but he is very classy on his day so we will just have to see what happens.  Decoy has to leave a couple of disappointnig runs behind him but if he does return to form he could be interesting off of a light weight.  Meanwhile at Plumpton, Diamonds Return will try to follow up his Wincanton win of  few days ago.  Conor O'Farrell rides this one for his dad who owns him and he does have a good chance if acting on the slower going.

The Tracey Shuffle ran a good third at Punchestown in a hot novice hurdle.  He was backed into 15/8 favourite but when you look at the facts, the winner Tofino Bay was nine pounds 'well in' against us on official ratings.  If you consider this then our boy has run a sound race and has probably run to form.  What was amazing about Punchestown was how much the ground seemed to have dried out from the day before.  It was still plenty testing enough but there was not so much water on the track and the horses were splashing through it well enough.  That is our runners finished for Punchestown this week and our horses are on their way back across the Irish sea.  Salut Flo our Cheltenham Festival winner was possibly going to run in Ireland on Saturday but it has been decided that he will not run and instead will be going on a nice summer holiday.

In action at Perth yesterday if you had stood on the winning line you could have had quite a few bets on photo finishes!  There was some great racing and I have never seen so many close finishes in one card!  Lucy Alexander somehow got Papamoa up to win on the line.  She must have been 500/1 coming to the last and this was the geldings first win in nine starts.  Lucy is a great up and coming jockey.

In the football I see that UEFA are going to let John Terry lift the trophy if Chelsea win the Champions League.  I think this is unbelieveable as he gets a red card in the semi final and is banned from playing in the final itself and yet can still lift the trophy if the team win.  I think this shows a bad example to all young players and Terrry should be embarrased at being able to do this.