Happy Birthday Bells!

Many happy returns to young conditional jockey Tom Bellamy (pictured above) who celebrates his 18th birthday today.  I am told that means that there are going to be a whole load of things that Bells Junior is now legally able to do...like he hasn't been doing any of them already!  I understand that a few of the staff are congregating in Exeter this evening to help him celebrate, so be advised to steer well clear of the city centre tonight!

It's a busy afternoon on the racing front with five meetings taking place this afternoon at Ayr, Newbury, Newmarket, Catterick and Wolverhampton.  It looks like being pretty gruelling conditions for Ayr's eight race card where the ground is currently given as heavy - to give you some indication of how bad it is going to be, the course had to abandon the first day of the meeting because of waterlogging.  There will be plenty of runners too, with the Ayr Gold, Silver and Bronze Cups (all massive handicaps) taking place this afternoon and for punting purposes you will certainly need to go through the form book to find a horse that will handle heavy ground.  I don't think that I would like to be one of the ground staff treading-in after racing.  We do it on the schooling grounds at Pond House and that is bad enough!  It is a fierecely competitive day's racing and William Hill are going 14/1 the field in the Ayr Gold Cup.

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I always enjoy a little flutter on the football at the weekend and today I will be having a wager on West Ham at 5/4, Newcastle at 17/20 and West Brom at 17/20...you heard it here first.  Let's keep our fingers crossed, otherwise it will be bread and cheese at the Barnes household next week!  There are some really exciting matches to look forward to as Liverpool take on Manchester United and Manchester City play Arsenal.  Arsenal have looked very good in recent weeks buth this will be the first acid test to see if they will be able to challenge for the Premiership this season.

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There was a great win for England over Afghanistan in the cricket yesterday, but as usual the press are getting over-excited comparing Luke Wright who scored an impressive 99 with Kevin Pietersen.  I wouldn't mind if they were going to give the guy a fair crack of the whip, but they will build him up just to knock him down again when things aren't going so well.  Come on, 99 against Afghanistan is not the same as 99 against South Africa, India, Australia, The West Indies or The Isle of Wight!