Ebor Day

Today there are six meetings with five cards on the flat at York, Goodwood, Newmarket, Windsor and Redcar as well as a jumps card at Cartmel.  The feature of the day is undoubtedly The Ebor at York - it is always a fiercely competitive handicap and this year's renewal looks to be well up to scratch with the bottom weight rated 96.  Twenty-one runners go to post for the £140,000 first prize and if you are trying to find the winner, you need to be looking for a trainer that can get his horses well handicapped.  Sir Mark Prescott's Motivado sneaked in at the bottom end of the weights and looks to be well ahead of the official assessor following an easy success last time out.  If this one wins you will probably see Sir Mark pull out one of his biggest cigars.

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As you all know by now David hosted an owners' day last Sunday and Attheraces presenter Luke Harvey turned up in the worst pair of shorts that I have ever seen - times must be hard for the Harvey family!  In fairness Luke did have a 100% record for MCP - one winner from one ride...we were struggling to find a proper jockey on a Bank Holiday Monday so had to make-do with Luke.  Luke phoned us for another ride and MCP told him no as he wanted to maintain his perfect record!

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I will be glued to the television this afternoon as West Ham take on Swansea on Sky at 12.45pm - I have to be honest it looks like a tough assignment for the Hammers.

This weekend I will be having a little treble on Man Utd (1/3), Sunderland (20/21) and Spurs (8/15) - hopefully that will put some bread on the table in the Barnes household next week.

Although Liverpool were badly beaten by West Brom last week I don't think they are as bad as the result looked on paper.  They take on Manchester City on Sunday and considering they are the home, I reckon they could be a bit of value to spring a surprise at 21/20.

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I was quite shocked to hear about the doping allegations surrounding seven time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.  The cyclist has been stripped of all his titles, but my question is...how come it has taken so long for all this to come out, and if he was cheating why didn't they pick up on it at the time through routine testing?  The other thing that troubles me - if he is innocent, why is he not appealing?