Thornton Out With A Win

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon and they are all on the level with the action coming from Haydock, Ripon, Yarmouth, Sandown and Carlisle so you are out of luck if you are a fan of the jumps.  Still, there was plenty of memorable scenes from yesterday's jump card from Uttoxeter as Andrew Thornton brought the curtain down on his 29 year riding career.  He went out with a winner aboard Amirr in the maiden hurdle.  It wasn't a champagne bath like the Formula One drivers' get, but he was soaked with buckets of water by his weighing room colleagues.  He wasn't the only one to get wet with present Luke Harvey getting a bucket over the head...what a waste of water!

Tom Scudamore was on the mark with a winner yesterday despite losing an iron at the last fence.  He kicked out his other foot and rode a finish without his stirrups.  His mount, Exxaro won with a bit in hand and looks capable of winning again and is one to keep an eye on in the coming weeks.

There was sad news yesterday when it was announced that former Gold Cup winner Denman had to be put down at the age of 18.  Now he was a superstar, winning 15 times and reaching an official figure of 184 over fences.  He was owned by Harry Findlay and Paul Barber and you couldn't imagine two more different characters.  Harry was a massive gambler who would bet on anything at all, while Paul is a dairy farmer.  They were certainly lucky to get a horse like Denman - those sorts only come along once in a lifetime.

David was sponsoring a race at Eggesford point-to-point near Okehampton last night - it was the 4, 5 and 6 year old's maiden, won by Byron Moorcroft aboard Sweet Lady Jane.  Although David was unable to attend, fortunately Gerry Supple was on hand to make the presentation on his behalf as you can see from the picture above.

*****

England continue their warm-up for the World Cup with a match against Costa Rica tonight at 8pm on ITV.  England are a best-priced 4/11 and while they should be too good for their opponents, that is too short for me.  The media are really building England up for the World Cup but as we know, that is only so they can tear them down again when they lose to a lesser nation.

Maria Sharapova was hammered 6-2 6-1 in just 70 minutes by Garbie Muguruza in their French Open tennis match.  I can't say that I am sorry, you know my views on drugs cheats by now.

It looks like time is literally up for slow golfers in Austria.  Pro's will get 50 seconds to play approach shots, chips or putts and 40 seconds for tee shots, otherwise they will be collecting a one shot penalty.  I can see some players collecting 20 penalties, they play so slow!

*****

I made a chicken salad last night...apparently they prefer to eat grain though!

Tweet