Chepstow, Ludlow Runners

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Ludlow and Chepstow as well all-weather flat fixtures from Wolverhampton and Chelmsford.  David has one runner at each jump meeting this afternoon with ex-Irish point-to-point winner Warthog (pictured above) making his debut for the stable in the bumper at Chepstow at 5.25pm  The ground was yielding to soft when he ran out an impressive winner at Lingstown and with everything appearing to be in his favour, he looks to hold very good prospects under stable jockey Tom Scudamore.  It's Scu's only ride of the day and I reckon the 'one ride theory' could come to fruition today!  Meanwhile, Taws goes in the 3.40pm race at Ludlow - a 2m5f novices' hurdle.  She was second in the Queen Alexandra at Royal Ascot on the flat and was a good second to Finian's Oscar over hurdles at Exeter on her penultimate start - form that would give her a good chance here under Daryl Jacob.

Worryingly I see that Irish trainer Tony Mullins is struggling to make ends meet.  He used to have 10 people working for him and now he has only 3 - he says that power in too few hands is killing Irish racing.  Messrs Elliott and Willie Mullins monopolise the industry in Ireland and have the big owners required to keep buying new stock, something that is making it very difficult for the smaller trainers to compete against...a worrying trend that was flagged up in the Racing Post earlier in the week.

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England football manager Gareth Southgate says that he was pleased with his side even though they lost 1-0 to a very poor, young German team.  The Germans never take friendly's very seriously, yet we still could not beat them.  Meanwhile, Scotland let my bet down when they could not see off Canada, drawing 1-1.  How far backwards have the home nations gone?  If it had been ice hockey I would understand it, but not football!

A great Liverpool man, Ronnie Moran passed away yesterday.  He seemed to be behind all the great Liverpool football teams and was a great motivator - so much so that he was known as 'Mr Liverpool'.

I see that former world snooker champion Stephen Hendry is bidding to make it back to the Crucible for the world championships when competing in the seniors' event at Scunthorpe, his first competitive snooker match since 2012.  If he wins the tournament he would automatically qualify for next month's world championship - it will certainly be interesting to see how he gets on.

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My favourite Russian song is "Crimea River"...have a nice day.

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