Gevrey Runs This Weekend

The stable has no runners this afternoon although we will are likely to have plenty of runners over the weekend, including the much anticipated hurdling debut of Grands Crus' full brother Gevrey Chambertin (pictured above) who holds engagements at Aintree, Bangor and Wincanton.  In the meantime though, there are five meetings taking place today at Doncaster, Newbury and Fakenham on the flat, as well as a couple over the sticks at Fakeham and Newcastle.  Fakenham should be applauded for putting up prize money of £79,000 and they have been rewarded with a competitive card of good class horses as well as top Irish jockeys Ruby Walsh and Barry Geraghty.

There has been much made about the reshuffle of the new look Channel 4 Racing and by and large they looks as though they have it about right to me.  The one person I will be sorry to see go though is former champion jockey John Francome.  I know that John did not wish to be considered for the show but I really do think that someone should try to talk him round - he has an effortless broadcasting style and a refreshing honesty and wit about what he says, probably due to the fact that he knows what he is talking about.  Indeed, he probably knows more about the game than most of the remainder of the team put together!

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It's the Cox Plate in Australia in the early hours of tomorrow morning.  The race, which is often used as a prep for the Melbourne Cup can be seen on Attheraces at 7.15am.  With prize money of over £1.2 million to the winner it is hardly surprising that there is a good sized field with runners from Ireland and New Zealand, but where are the English trained runners?  With John Gosden's Gatewood winning the Geelong Cup earlier in the week, you would think that there would be others willing to take their chances.

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It was a better night for the English football sides in Europe last night as both Liverpool and Newcastle won, while Tottenham Hotspur managed to draw away to NK Maribor.

I see that the Serbian FA has banned two of it's under-21 stars as well as two coaches for their involvement in the night of shame in Krusevas last week.  Surely Serbia have to be kicked out of all competitions as just banning some of the players will make precious little difference to their attitudes towards racism.

How can Ipswich possibly be considering former England striker Alan Shearer for their managers position?  To my mind they need experience to get them back on track rather than just a big name who will give them a short term lift.