Wind Op Mix Up!

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Huntingdon and Sedgefield as well as all-weather flat fixtures from Southwell and Chelmsford City.  There are no runners from Pond House today although stable jockeys Tom Scudamore and David Noonan have picked up outside rides at Huntingdon, so we will be keeping our fingers crossed for those.  A little further ahead, I see that the bookies have started betting on the Irish National - I wonder why only four British trainers have made entries?  With £500,000 up for grabs you would think they would take a look.

I see that yesterday there was the first instance of a horse winning without a wind operation being declared.  Trainer Charlie Hills said that he forgot to declare the operation before Jetstream won at 25/1.  The stewards fined him £290 and jockey Robert Winston said, "He's a very nice horse and there was nothing wrong with his wind today".  I am not sure if this was a wind-up!

It seems that nothing is going right for Welsh handler Evan Williams at the moment.  He has had 37 runners and gone almost three weeks without a winner and looked likely to end his drought yesterday at Ludlow when Voodoo Doll look all over the winner half way up the run-in, but somehow threw the race away by hanging left and getting beaten a head.  I bet he is wondering what he has done wrong.

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If I were the Manchester United boss I think the first order of business would be to give goalkeeper David de Gea whatever he wants.  He certainly saved them last night against Sevilla.  From what I can see, United are still three or four players away from making a real impact, especially among their defense.

While we are on the subject of football, I understand that Napoli boss Maurizio Sarri has had a special smoking area built in the dressing room.  Mind you, the manager does chain smoke and puffs his way through 80 cigarettes a day.  I wonder how many of his players smoke?  I remember an advert with Johnny Haynes smoking at half-time in the Fulham dressing room.  Ask your grandfather who Johnny Haynes was...

It would appear that boxer David Haye has had one too many punches to the head.  He claims that fighting Anthony Joshua will secure a boxing legacy to match that of Muhammad Ali...and then he woke up!

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Sadly there was an incident at the local athletics track where someone was shot with a starter pistol.  Police believe it may have been race related!  Have a nice day...