Drying Ground

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with flat cards from Carlisle, Salisbury, Kempton and Bath, while there is a jumps fixture from Worcester.  There are no runners from Pond House today and David decided that the ground was plenty fast enough at Newton Abbot last night so withdrew both Red Square Revival and Timefoben.  Talking of Newton Abbot, what does some idiot get out of setting fire to the open ditch?  It is going to cost the track around £4,000 to replace.

The hot weather is certainly taking it's toll on the ground and while course officials do their best to combat it with artificial watering, there is only so much they can do.  The courses are having to come up with novel ways of attracting racegoers too, with Beverley yesterday handing out free sun block to their visitors...a new approach indeed.

Looking through the card at Bath, there aren't many entries and the ground is officially firm.  It does get very fast on top of the Lansdown Hill and I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot withdrawn today, especially if they are considered to be talented by connections.  I see there are a couple of three year old's in the 8.20pm race that cost £150,000 and £380,000 - it will be interesting to see if they take their chances.

I had to laugh when I saw that Sian McCain, wife of northern trainer Donald tweeted a picture of her Christmas tree.  She asked him to take it down in December and he has still not done it!  Perhaps he thinks that if he leaves it, then he isn't going to have get it back down from the loft again shortly?  When Mrs Barnes saw it, she said "so you're not the only lazy person in the world!"

*****

There was a great result for Argentina in the football yesterday as they beat Nigeria 2-1 to secure their place in the last 16 of the World Cup.  Germany take on South Korea today but I will be giving that one a swerve as the Germans are too short at 2/9.  I will be having little bet on Serbia to beat Brazil at 33/5 and Switzerland at 3/4 to beat Costa Rica to give me an interest.  I have hidden the remote control from Mrs Barnes - she will be pleased!

I see that the England players will get a £217,000 bonus if they win the World Cup.  To normal people such as myself that is a fortune, but remember it is not even a week's wages to most of this lot!  Meanwhile, the Belgians will get £400,000 if they win the trophy.  Just to add a bit of spice, England take on Belgium tomorrow!

*****

I urgently need some small cartoon icons to describe my feelings.  It's an emojiency!  Have a nice day...

Tweet