A Wet Start To The Week

It's a lot milder this morning, but it is a miserable start to the day in the west country nonetheless with heavy rain - hopefully it will clear as the day goes on.  There are three meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Ayr and Plumpton supported by an all-weather flat fixture from Wolverhampton.  There are no runners from Pond House today, although David Noonan has picked up a spare ride at Plumpton - let's hope that it goes well for him, otherwise it will seem like a long journey home. 

Talking of long journeys, it must have seemed a long way for Paul Nicholls to take Vivaldi Collonges up to Kelso yesterday only for the former classy handicapper to be pulled up for a fourth consecutive time.  The race was won by a thirteen year old; Al Co.

I wonder how many of the questions you can get right from today's Racing Post?  I will give you a taster...Who rode Our Vic to win the Peter Marsh Chase for trainer David Pipe in 2010?  I will give you a clue...too many of them spoil the broth!

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What a fantastic football match yesterday with Liverpool beating Premiership leaders Manchester City 4-3.  It was very entertaining and if I were the manager of either team I would be looking for a new goalkeeper. especially Liverpool who should ship all of their goalies out and spend some of their transfer fees on acquiring a top class keeper.  They would then be a threat to all and genuine contenders next season based on this evidence.

Meanwhile, Arsenal seem to be fading away as they have dropped to sixth in the Premier League and it begs the question, how can manager Arsene Wenger possibly stay?  He has been a great manager down the years but he seems to have run out of ideas and is well past his sell-by date.

England had a result as they beat the Aussies in the first one day match.  Jason Roy scored the highest ever one day score by an English batsman with 180, while Joe Root also produced a good knock.  England lead 1-0 in the five match series which is a good start, although I still don't think I will be backing the tourists to win the series.

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A few weeks ago two cartoonists entered a contest...the result was a draw!  Oh dear...