Eric 3rd At Southwell

Easter Eric (pictured above) produced a creditable first effort when third in the bumper at Southwell yesterday evening.  This had the look of a decent contest for the time of year and he will certainly have learned plenty for this racecourse debut.  He is a well-bred individual and he looks like he should have little trouble winning something similar.  He handled the good ground well and didn't look as though he would be inconvenienced by it being quicker still.  This was a promising effort, something that was not lost on the Racing Post who made him their eyecatcher of the meeting.

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon and they are all on the flat with fixtures from Sandown, Goodwood, Catterick, Lingfield and Chelmsford City so unsurprisingly there are no runners from Pond House today.

I am back in Lambourn with Martin and Carol and it is windy and raining quite hard.  At least that should help the ground a little.  I had to laugh; the local paper shop had 50 copies of the Racing Post for sale.  Yes, I did say 50...in Brixham you are lucky if you can find one!  AP was up at Wentworth for the pro-am yesterday - the proper stuff starts today so let's hope there is not too much rain.

The evening meeting at Sandown tonight will be show on terrestrial television for the first time in 21 years - that has to be good news for racing, so let's hope that it gets a good audience.  Meanwhile, the big race of the day is the Listed contest at Goodwood - the Gosden team have been in good form so it may be best left to their Derrymore.

David is up at the Doncaster Sales at the moment and I know that he bought at least one yesterday and I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few more making the trip back to Pond House after today's action in the ring.  Remember, if you are interested in joining the ownership ranks at Pond House, do get in touch - David has a knack of finding the right sort of horse for the right sort of money and it needn't cost a king's ransom.  I used to love going up to the Doncaster sales with Martin.  I remember we bought a horses called My Dominion for £300 and Martin tried to sell half to me.  I told him that he should never buy a horse from Easterby...well, it won it's first seven races!  It shows what a good judge I was - that was over 30 years ago and Martin still reminds me now!

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I find it very hard to take that my beloved Hammers told James Collins that he would be leaving the club by e-mail.  When you think of the service he has given the team, he certainly didn't deserve to be treated in such a shabby manner.  Surely Yaya Toure will get another club?  He is only 35 and wants to play for another couple of years.  The trouble is, he will probably want big wages and injuries tend to pile up as you get a bit older (I should know!).

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I went to my local zoo the other day.  The only animal there was a dog.  It was a Shi Tzu!  Keep smiling...

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