Seven Fixtures Today

There is a bumper day of action ahead with no less than seven meetings taking place.  The flat action comes from York, Musselburgh, Sandown, Bath, Leicester and Lingfield while there is a jumps fixture from Hexham.  There are no runners from Pond House today.  Lingfield are today's wooden spoon winners with just £30,000 in prize money spread across their seven race card - in some of the races you get just £168 for finishing fourth...hardly enough to cover the transport unless you live next door to the track!  Talking of petrol, stable jockey Tom Scudamore travels all the way up to Hexham for a couple of outside rides and they are both going to be big prices.  It could prove an expensive day for him, let's hope that he is lucky.

I was very impressed by the performance of Shargiah at Sandown yesterday.  He has now won four of his last five starts including this one from a mark of 89.  He is clearly developing into a smart handicapper...or maybe even a bit better than that.  I had a few quid on him so that makes him even better still!

There was an interesting seller for two year old's at York yesterday.  Trainer Jimmy Quinn went to 15,500 guineas to buy his winner back.  With seventeen runners, there is obviously a market for this type of race.  In my opinion there are not enough sellers and claimers, especially over longer trips - the subsequent auctions are a bit different for the spectators while the longer races can also give jumps trainers a chance to find a potential hurdler or two.  The track also earns from them, so what is the harm in putting a few more on the calendar?

Former champion flat jockey Silvestre de Sousa had a great day at Sandown yesterday when he booted home five winners and he is now as short as 1/5 to reclaim his jockey's title.

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Russia take on New Zealand in the group stages of the Confederations Cup football this afternoon and it is on ITV at 4pm.  Russia are 30/100, but if you want to buy some money here is a useful tip for you...New Zealand have won just one of their last sixteen games against opposition outside Oceania.

How can Christiano Ronaldo want to leave sunny Spain and return to rainy Manchester and a possible reunion with United?  Does he not realise the Spanish will still chase him for his tax?!

There are two Brits among the four-way tie for the lead in the US Open golf.  Paul Casey and Tommy Fleetwood are playing extremely well on this difficult course.  The rough looks absolutely brutal...just ask Rory McIlroy!

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Rugby jokes...it's a nice try! (and topical).  Have a great weekend...

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