Four Fixtures Today

There are four fixtures on today with three jumps cards at Musselburgh, Hexham and Fontwell hosting jumps cards, while Wolverhampton have an all-weather meeting under the floodlights this evening.  Once again, it is Musselburgh who offer the lion's share of the prize money with nearly £50,000 up for grabs this afternoon.  The stable doesn't have any runners today, although we are likely to have a fair few over the weekend.  Among those could be The Package (pictured above) who has an engagement in the Badger Ales Chase at Wincanton

So Frankel has moved back to the place where he was born at Banstead Manor Stud and will take up stallion duties next season.  Apparently he is now too valuable to insure - even if they could get him covered I would hate to think what the premium would be with a value of in excess of £100 million.  His stud fee alone will be in the region of £100,000...I think if I were Prince Khalid Abdullah I would have somebody sleeping in his box.  The security must be like the Bank of England...probably better!

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There was quite a race at Towcester yesterday afternoon and it perfectly illustrated how punters can get stung by betting in running.  In the second race Springinherstep must have traded at long odds-on as the five year old mare came to the last hurdle with the race at her mercy.  However, the uphill finish caught her out and she was collared on the line by Valrene.  I bet a few fingers were burnt there.

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I was amused to see that someone thought it was sad to see Rod Stewart crying after the Barcelona match at Parkhead earlier in the week.  While I am not one to revel in other people's misery, I don't feel too sorry for Rod - he was probably crying because he had been asked to pay for his ticket!

Tottenham Hotspur had a good result in the Europa League last night as they beat Maribor 3-1 thanks to a great hat-trick from Jermaine Defoe.  Despite the fact that he was pulled from his club side last week, he must surely be in line for an England call-up.  His performance last night must have given Spurs manager Villas-Boas a kick up the backside - Defoe is certainly a better striker than his other option Dempsey and the vociferous crowd certainly didn't mind letting him know it!

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He cycles all the way around France at high speed, misses all those mad drivers and then gets knocked off his bike near Wigan!  Poor old Bradley Wiggens should stick to the cycle paths in future!