New Prize Money Row

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with flat cards from Nottingham, Catterick and Kempton while there is a jumps card from Fontwell.  David has no runners today although stable jockey Tom Scu has managed to pick up four outside rides at Fontwell so let's hope that he is among the winners as he closes in on his seasonal century.  Meanwhile Conor O'Farrell booted home a winner at Exeter yesterday proving he is more than capable when given the opportunity - it would be great if there were more trainers willing to put these good young jockeys up.

I see that Richard Hannon Jr has taken a swipe at Windsor over the prize money on offer at the track, this on the heels of William Haggas' broadside of Southwell earlier in the week.  Hannon says that they are running nice horses for just £2,000 and a bottle of champagne.  I have been saying the same thing about a number of courses for some time now and if I were an owner I would be boycotting the tracks who try to get away with paying a pittance.  Hannon Jr says that he will be adopting such a policy and not entering his horses anywhere where there is poor prize money on offer.  Let's hope that other trainers follow suit as it is the only way that some of these tracks will take a look at themselves.

There was interest in the selling hurdle at Exeter yesterday with Pension Madness and The Wexfordian (subject of five claims!) both claimed - the funny thing is that there was no interest in the winner Gambol who I thought won quite nicely.  It will be interesting to see how Pension Madness fares as he beat only three horses home, I must be missing something!

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The big football match tonight is between Atl Madrid and Leicester on BT Sport at 7.45pm.  Madrid are a best priced 3/10 and they look by far the most likely winners although they are probably too short for the average working man like me to back.

Cricketer Ben Stokes had a nightmare in the IPL yesterday.  You may remember that he set his team back £1.7 million - well yesterday he conceded 23 runs in one over with the ball and then went on to score just 2 runs with the bat for his team the Super Giants.  They lost by 97 runs and I am not sure that the team are that well named!

Would you pay £10,000 for a ringside ticket for the Joshua versus Klitschko fight?  Nor would I - the tickets, which have a face value of £2,000 (still seems plenty enough to me) are making ridiculous prices on the black market.  Let's hope it is not an early knock out for all those that have parted with their hard-earned.

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Thought for the day...gambling addiction hotlines would do so much better if every 100th caller was a winner!

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