Lingfield Double

It was a good weekend for the yard with another couple of winners at Lingfield to add to the tally.  Conor O'Farrell produced a couple of excellent rides to score aboard Take Over Sivola (pictured above) and Tanerko Emery to score with a bit in hand.  Tanerko Emery looks to be a very bright prospect after following-up last week's success under topweight of 12-2 in testing conditions.  Meanwhile we had a number of other runners that performed creditably including His Excellency who was only just run out of it close home at Cheltenham - he was trying to give 8lbs to the winner Shooters Hill so this was clearly a very good effort under champion jockey A P McCoy.

There are three meetings taking place this afternoon at Ffos Las and Plumpton over the sticks, while Wolverhampton hosts an all-weather flat card.  The stable has two runners at Ffos Las, Military Precision and Vieux Lion Rouge both of whom are making their debuts for the stable.  Stable jockey Tom Scudamore rides them both.

Below you will see that Martin has filmed another short video of No Secrets on the treadmill this morning.  It is all a part of his daily routine here at Pond House...

No Secrets Treadmill from David Pipe on Vimeo.

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It was a good weekend for sport and there was the usual annual celebration last night for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards.  Unsurprisingly Bradley Wiggins was named the winner ahead of Jessica Ennis and Andy Murray - the biggest surprise is that Mo Farrah was not among the winners.  Wiggins thanked his nan for pushing the redial button so many times - he is a worthy winner and a great character.

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England managed to secure the Test series win against India at the weekend - that is the first time since 1985.  I cannot believe that they will not use the referral system over there - Alastair Cook was given out to a catch despite his bat going nowhere near the ball!  You cannot just leave these things to the umpires and referees anymore, especially when technology takes away the element of doubt.

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Boxer Amir Khan is on the comeback trail and he won at the weekend by stopping Carlos Molina in the tenth round.  It seems to me that connections do not want to put Khan in with anyone who can throw a serious punch.  He looks great against inferior opponents and non-punchers but he looks to have a glass chin (although I wouldn't say that to his face!).

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There was a disgraceful incident in the Premiership at the weekend where Everton's Fellaini headbutted Ryan Shawcross.  The Toffees boss has already fined his player £150,000 (the maximum that he is allowed to do), but surely he should be facing a lengthy ban from the sport.  You cannot just go around behaving like that, especially in a sport that is so fixed in the public eye.