Rose Bids For Royal Coup!

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Sandown and Fakenham as well as all-weather flat fixtures from Lingfield and Newcastle.  David has one runner today as Rathlin Rose (pictured above) bids to follow-up his famous victory in the Royal Artillery Gold Cup at Sandown under Captain Guy Disney.  He went on to follow-up in the Grand Military Gold Cup and he has shown he retains all of his ability with a fine effort in the Welsh National on his penultimate start.  The race probably came too soon on desperate ground at Wincanton last time and if he can recapture his previous form he would go close to adding another chapter to this amazing fairytale.

I was sorry to hear that Reg 'The Beef Roll Man' at Leicester racecourse has retired.  Mind you, he was 91 years old so I suppose it was time for him to turn his hand to something new.  Now there is a trendy coffee bar called 'Cafe Allezi' which only sells coffee and no hot food...I am sure the course will soon learn that this is not the way to go.  I used to look forward to going to the races and enjoying one of Reg's rolls - I remember eating one when I claimed Make A Stand (I hope Martin reads this!).

What about Richard Pitman schooling at Lambourn yesterday on his 75th birthday?  I always enjoy Luke Harvey's show Jumpers and Bumpers on Attheraces on Wednesdays and it was a very enjoyable with Luke and Richard having a chat about the old days, including how he started with Fred Winter.

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Chelsea play Hull in the 5th round of the FA Cup tonight and Chelsea should be good enough to win this easily, although odds of 2/9 are short enough.  They may be worth sticking in a double with Leicester who take on Sheffield United.  Meanwhile, there was a good result for Arsenal yesterday as they beat Swedish minor team Ostersunds 3-0 on their plastic pitch.

I was watching some of the golf yesterday and in particular the play of Tiger Woods.  He still seems to spray it all over the place from the tee and he cannot drive the ball anything like as far as he used to.  All of the injuries have clearly taken their toll and we have definitely seen the best of him.  Talking of golf, I see that a horse called Planet Nine unseated jockey Craig Nichol on the way to the start at Kelso yesterday and ran right across the golf course.  The greens have a few hoof prints on them and I bet the green keeper was less than impressed.

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Thought for the day...exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.  Keep smiling...

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