Hereford, Lingfield Runners

There is already good news this morning as Catterick have inspected earlier than intended and have given the green light for the jumps action to go ahead this afternoon.  There is also a National Hunt fixture at Hereford as well as flat action on the all-weather at Lingfield and Kempton.  The stable has a couple of runners - Oddjob who makes his chasing debut at Hereford after a layoff of just shy of 700 days and The Pier (pictured above) who is having his first start on the level at Lingfield since joining the Pond House team.

The stable had one runner yesterday afternoon, High Ville who performed creditably to finish runner-up in the bumper at Towcester.  He had finished second on his previous couple of starts but they were on much faster ground - Towcester is a testing track at the best of times so the soft ground may just have been against him.  I'm sure he will be picking up races in due course, perhaps under slightly less taxing conditions.

Below, there is a nice little video of the horses on the gallops during first lot that gives you a bit of a flavour of what happens behind the scenes at the yard everyday.

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Well done to Graham Lee on riding 100 winners in a calendar year in his first season on the flat.  It is certainly a great achievement, as is managing to keep his weight down - he should publish his diet book, I reckon it would be a best seller!

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Following yet another wrong course debacle at Fakenham recently, I see that they are going to put up two portable white barriers in front of the fence by the winning post.  This should stop the jockeys from jumping the fence a la Brendan Powell junior last month.

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It is hard to believe, but somehow Manchester City somehow managed to finish last in their group and do not even make the Europa League.  They scored the fewest points of all English teams - even fewer than Arsenal who lost 2-1 to Olympiakos.  Manager Arsene Wenger said that it was a solid performance from the Gunners - I wonder if the fans will agree?!

Surely Chelsea are in line to win their first game under new manager Rafa Benitez tonight as they take on Nordsjaelland - they are as short as 1/10 with some firms.  Could Torres score?  Can two miracles happen in one night?!  I think I will stop there - afterall, David is a Chelsea fan!