Chepstow, Plumpton Runners

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Chepstow, Plumpton and Stratford as well as an all-weather flat fixture from Chelmsford City.  Stable jockey Tom Scudamore goes to Chepstow to ride new recruit and Irish point-to-point winner Warthog in the 11 runner bumper.  Our five year old was a convincing winner last time and his experience will stand him in good stead here - he goes well at home and a big run is expected.  Conditional jockey David Noonan goes to Plumpton for the mount aboard Carqalin in the novices' handicap chase at 2.30pm.  He will need to improve on his hurdles form to figure but he has schooled nicely at home and a change of discipline could bring about some improvement.

I thought that Ramses de Teillee ran a nice race in the EBF Final at Sandown on Saturday.  He travelled into the race nicely before not appearing to quite get home - mistakes at the last two flights of hurdles did not help his cause either.  He is clearly capable of winning a race before too long and he won't find many more competitive than this.

The big news over the weekend is that Moon Racer will contest the Champion Hurdle.  It does not look to be a vintage renewal of the race but there is no such thing as an easy Champion Hurdle.  On official figures he has it to do, although he is clearly on the upgrade and we still have not seen his true potential released as yet.  Martin won the Champion Hurdle with novice Make A Stand 20 years ago, although he came into the race having run eleven times over timber.  It will take a very good performance to win it but as we know he is a fragile horse and he had favourite Yanworth behind when taking the Champion Bumper in 2015, so who can blame connections for having a go.

I loved Peter Scudamore's selection for the Pertemps Final at the Cheltenham Festival, Dadsintrouble - perhaps it should have been Tom's selection?!

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Tottenham Hotspur annihilated Millwall 6-0 in the quarter-final of the FA Cup yesterday but they could just have lost Harry Kane for the remainder of the season.  He left White Hart Lane on crutches having suffered an injury on the same ankle previously.  He has been their star player all season and any chance of landing the Premiership are diminished considerably if he is not playing for them.

There is a great match to look forward to tonight as Chelsea take on Manchester United in the FA Cup tonight at 7.45pm on BBC1.  Chelsea are 10/11 and could get me some stake money for the start of the Festival tomorrow.

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I saw a coconut flavoured biscuit playing football the other day...it was Wayne Macarooney!

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